Top 15 Thomas More Quotes

English statesman, lawyer and philosopher (1478–1535)

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Saint Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), also known as Sir Thomas More, was an English lawyer, writer, and politician. He is chiefly remembered for his principled refusal to accept King Henry VIII's claim to be the supreme head of the Church of England, a decision which ended his political career and led to his execution as a traitor. In 1935, four hundred years after his death, More was canonized in the Catholic Church and was later declared the patron saint of statesmen, lawyers, and politicians.

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Alternative Names: Sir Thomas More • Saint Thomas More • Thomas Morus • Thomas, Saint More • Thomas, Sir More

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For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.

A pretty face may be enough to catch a man, but it takes character and good nature to hold him.

[how can anyone] be silly enough to think himself better than other people, because his clothes are made of finer woolen thread than theirs. After all, those fine clothes were once worn by a sheep, and they never turned it into anything better than a sheep.

You wouldn't abandon ship in a storm just because you couldn't control the winds.

Instead of inflicting these horrible punishments, it would be far more to the point to provide everyone with some means of livelihood, so that nobody's under the frightful necessity of becoming first a thief and then a corpse.

The many great gardens of the world, of literature and poetry, of painting and music, of religion and architecture, all make the point as clear as possible: The soul cannot thrive in the absence of a garden. If you don't want paradise, you are not human; and if you are not human, you don't have a soul.

One of the greatest problems of our time is that many are schooled but few are educated.

Nobody owns anything but everyone is rich - for what greater wealth can there be than cheerfulness, peace of mind, and freedom from anxiety?

Pride thinks it's own happiness shines the brighter by comparing it with the misfortunes of others.

Kindness and good nature unite men more effectually and with greater strength than any agreements whatsoever, since thereby the engagements of men's hearts become stronger than the bond and obligation of words.

Why do you suppose they made you king in the first place?' I ask him. 'Not for your benefit, but for theirs. They meant you to devote your energies to making their lives more comfortable, and protecting them from injustice. So your job is to see that they're all right, not that you are - just as a shepherd's job, strictly speaking, is to feed his sheep, not himself.

What part soever you take upon you, play that as well as you can and make the best of it.

It's wrong to deprive someone else of a pleasure so that you can enjoy one yourself, but to deprive yourself of a pleasure so that you can add to someone else's enjoyment is an act of humanity by which you always gain more than you lose.

One man to live in pleasure and wealth, whiles all other weap and smart for it, that is the part not of a king, but of a jailor.

Anyone who campaigns for public office becomes disqualified for holding any office at all.