Thomas More Quotes on Mind
Sir Thomas More, the English humanist and author of Utopia, was admired for both the keenness and the integrity of his mind, and the quotes gathered here reflect both. More valued mental discipline, advising, in a remark marked here as attributed, that if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics. In Utopia he used the device of an imagined people to expose the irrationality of his own society's values, having the Utopians wonder much that gold, in itself so useless a thing, should be everywhere esteemed above the human beings who give it worth. And in the letter to his daughter written as he faced execution, More set down a conscience entirely at peace: he did nobody harm, said none, thought none, but wished everybody good. Drawn from Utopia and his other writings, these passages present a mind marked by clarity, irony, and a settled moral integrity.
Quotes
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Attributed to Thomas More:
“If a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics.”
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“Yea, marry, now it is somewhat, for now it is rhyme; before it was neither rhyme nor reason.”
Advising an author to put his MS. into rhyme. Reported in Hoyt's (1922), p. 604 Rhyme nor reason. Said by Peele — Edward I . In As You Like It . Act III. Sc. 2. The Comedy of Errors . Act II. Sc. 2. The Merry Wives of Windsor . Act V. Sc. 5. Farce du Vendeur des Lieures . (16th Cen.) L'avocat Patelin (Quoted by Tyndale , 1530.) The Mouse Trap . (1606) See Beloe, Anecdotes of Literature . II. 127. -
“Advising an author to put his MS. into rhyme. Reported in Hoyt's (1922), p. 604 Rhyme nor reason. Said by Peele — Edward I . In As You Like It . Act III. Sc. 2. The Comedy of Errors . Act II. Sc. 2. The Merry Wives of Windsor . Act V. Sc. 5. Farce du Vendeur des Lieures . (16th Cen.) L'avocat Patelin (Quoted by Tyndale , 1530.) The Mouse Trap . (1606) See Beloe, Anecdotes of Literature . II. 127. Also in MS. in Cambridge University Library, England. 2. 5. Folio 9b. (Before 1500) (See also Spenser )”
Yea, marry, now it is somewhat, for now it is rhyme; before it was neither rhyme nor reason. -
“Now there was a young gentleman which had married a merchant 's wife. And having a little wanton money, which him thought burned out the bottom of his purse, in the first year of his wedding took his wife with him and went over sea, for none other errand but to see Flanders and France and ride out one summer in those countries.”
Works (c. 1530) | Sometimes paraphrased "A little wanton money, which burned out the bottom of his purse. -
“And when the devil hath seen that they have set so little by him, after certain essays, made in such times as he thought most fitting, he hath given that temptation quite over. And this he doth not only because the proud spirit cannot endure to be mocked , but also lest, with much tempting the man to the sin to which he could not in conclusion bring him, he should much increase his merit.”
Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation (1535), Book Two, Section XVI -
“I do nobody harm, I say none harm, I think none harm, but wish everybody good. And if this be not enough to keep a man alive, in good faith, I long not to live.”
Thomas More's Account, in a letter to his daughter Margaret Roper, of his Second Interrogation -
“They wonder much to hear that gold , which in itself is so useless a thing, should be everywhere so much esteemed, that even men for whom it was made, and by whom it has its value, should yet be thought of less value than it is.”
Utopia(1516) | Ch. 6 : Of the Travelling of the Utopians