Thomas More Short Quotes

25 Sourced Quotes

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This is a fair tale of a tub told of his election.

Thomas More
I die the king's faithful servant, but God's first.

Thomas More
If honor were profitable, everybody would be honorable.

Thomas More
See me safe up: for in my coming down, I can shift for myself.

Thomas More
The servant may not look to be in better case than his master.

Thomas More
The way to heaven out of all places is of length and distance.

Thomas More
See me safe up, and for my coming down let me shift for myself.

Thomas More
Is not this house [the Tower of London] as nigh heaven as my own?

Thomas More
It is naturally given to all men to esteem their own inventions best.

Thomas More
To gold and silver nature hath given no use that we may not well lack.

Thomas More
If the lion knew his own strength, hard were it for any man to rule him.

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

Thomas More
We may not look at our pleasure to go to heaven in feather-beds; it is not the way.

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

Thomas More
I pray you, master Lieutenant, see me safe up, and my coming down let me shift for my self.
Of mounting the scaffold

Thomas More
Yea, marry, now it is somewhat, for now it is rhyme; before, it was neither rhyme nor reason.

Thomas More
A good tale evil told were better untold, and an evil take well told need none other solicitor.

Thomas More
This vice [Pride] does not measure happiness so much by its own conveniences, as by the miseries of others.

Thomas More
To love God, which was a thing far excelling all the cunning that is possible for us in this life to obtain.

Thomas More
For men use, if they have an evil turn, to write it in marble: and whoso doth us a good turn we write it in dust.

Thomas More
By reason of gifts and bribes the offices be given to rich men, which should rather have been executed by wise men.

Thomas More
Every man has by the law of nature a right to such a waste portion of the earth as is necessary for his subsistence.

Thomas More
Fare well my dear child and pray for me, and I shall for you and all your friends that we may merrily meet in heaven.
Last letter to his daughter, before his execution

Thomas More
They have no lawyers among them, for they consider them as a sort of people whose profession it is to disguise matters.

Thomas More
The most part of all princes have more delight in warlike manners and feats of chivalry than in the good feats of peace.

Thomas More
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.

Thomas More
.. the state of things and the dispositions of men were then such, that a man could not well tell whom he might trust or whom he might fear.

Thomas More
And peradventure we have more cause to thank Him for our loss than for our winning; for His wisdom better seeth what is good for us than we do ourselves.

Thomas More
Pluck up thy spirits, man, and be not afraid to do thine office; my neck is very short; take heed therefore thou strike not awry, for saving of thine honesty.
Speaking to the executioner

Thomas More
The Utopians feel that slaughtering our fellow creatures gradually destroys the sense of compassion, which is the finest sentiment of which our human nature is capable.

Thomas More