Richard Llewellyn Quotes & Sayings

How green was my valley then, and the valley of them that have gone. — Richard Llewellyn

Men lose their birthrights for a mess of pottage only if they stop using the gifts given them by God for their betterment. By prayer. That is the first and greatest gift. Use the gift of prayer. Ask for strength of mind, and a clear vision. Then sense. Use your sense. ... Think long and well. By prayer and good thought you will conquer all enemies. — Richard Llewellyn

Bad news has good legs. — Richard Llewellyn

Prayer is only another name for good, clean, direct thinking. When you pray, think well what you are saying, and make your thoughts into things that are solid. In that manner, your prayer will have strength, and that strength shall become part of you, mind, body, and spirit. — Richard Llewellyn

She has passed information to you. Figures names and facts. You have learnt nothing very much. But you have a splendid memory. It will help you when you start to learn. — Richard Llewellyn

So I went to bed, full, happy, and caring nothing for all the hurt of all the englished Welshmen that ever festered upon a proud land — Richard Llewellyn

I had slept nothing all night, making ghosts for myself, filling my mind with them and giving myself pale frights. All the ghosts had a different punishment for me, some of them shocking indeed. — Richard Llewellyn

Yet Conscience is a nobleman, the best in us, and a friend. — Richard Llewellyn

But I was born in the image of God, a man, a creator, with power of life and death, a father, blessed with the gift of the seed of Adam, a sower of seed, to bring forth generations of new life.
This I was, and envying a kettle. — Richard Llewellyn

You must realize ... that the men of the Valley have built their houses and brought up their families without help from others, without a word from the Government. Their lives have been ordered from birth by the Bible. From it they took their instructions. They had no other guidance, and no other law. If it has produced hypocrites and pharisees, the fault is in the human race. We are not all angels. Our fathers upheld good conduct and rightful dealing by strictness, but it is in Man Adam to be slippery, and many are as slimy as the adder. The wonder is to me that the men of the Valley are as they are, and not barbarians at all.I was sorry for Meillyn Lewis, too. But that session of the deacons was helpful as a preventative. It was cruel, but it is more cruel to allow misconduct to flourish without check. — Richard Llewellyn

It is very strange to think back like this, although come to think of it, there is no fence or hedge round Time that has gone. You can go back and have what you like if you remember it well enough. — Richard Llewellyn

The beauty and music ... It is a call ... And some are not strong. — Richard Llewellyn

The evil that is in Man comes of sluggish minds ... for sluggards cannot think, and will not ... Send upon us thy flames that we may be burnt of dead thoughts, even as we burn dead grass ... make us see. — Richard Llewellyn

Pain is a good cleanser of the mind and therefore of the sight. Matters which seem to mean the world, in health, are found to be of no import when pain is hard upon you. — Richard Llewellyn

There is no room for pride in any man. There is no room for unkindness. There is no room for wit at the expense of others. All men are born the same, and equal. As you saw to-day, so come the Captains and the Kings and the Tinkers and the Tailors. — Richard Llewellyn

Why is it, I wonder, that people suffer, when there is so little need, when an effort of will and some hard work would bring them from their misery into peace and contentment. — Richard Llewellyn

There is beautiful you are."
"No," said Marged, between a sigh and a sob.
"Yes," said Owen.
"No," said Marged, not so certain.
"Behold," Owen said, from Solomon. "thou art fair. Thou hast dove's eyes."
"Dove's eyes are small." Marged said.
"Yours are so big they are my whole world," said Owen. — Richard Llewellyn

Then sense. Use your sense. Not all of us are born for greatness, but all of us have sense. Make use of it. Think. Think long and well. — Richard Llewellyn

That is the trouble ... You are a crowd of bits of boys all in the thing for what you will get. Demands, you call them. Well, I am against demands of any kind. You cannot reason with demand, and where there is no reason, there is no sense. As for your support, whatever you call it, some long word, what is the use of it? — Richard Llewellyn

Though neither happiness nor respect are worth anything, because unless both are coming from the truest motives, they are simply deceits. A successful man earns the respect of the world never mind what is the state of his mind, or his manner of earning. So what is the good of such respect, and how happy will such a man be in himself? And if he is what passes for happy, such a state is lower than the self-content of the meanest animal. — Richard Llewellyn

For as men have fists and heads to defend themselves, so women have a gentleness of silence about them, a barrier built of things of the spirit, of pain, of quiet, of helplessness, of grace, of all that is beautiful and womanly an equal part, given to them because they are women in defense of their womaness. And this barrier a man will find against him to turn aside his male attack, keep his arms pinned, stop his mouth, cool his eyes, reduce his heat and restrain his idle imaginings. This barrier it is that women who are women keep always at a height, coming from behind it only when, with knowledge and in light, they trust. You shall see it in their eyes. — Richard Llewellyn

I saw behind me those who had gone, and before me, those who are to come. I looked back and saw my father, and his father, and all our fathers, and in front, to see my son, and his son, and the sons upon sons beyond.
And their eyes were my eyes.
As I felt, so they had felt, and were to feel, as then, so now, as tomorrow and forever. Then I was not afraid, for I was in a long line that had no beginning, and no end, and the hand of his father grasped my father's hand, and his hand was in mine, and my unborn son took my right hand, and all, up and down the line stretched from Time That Was, to Time That Is, and is not yet, raised their hands to show the link, and we found that we were one, born of Woman, Son of Man, had in the Image, fashioned in the Womb by the Will of God, the eternal Father.
I was one of them, they were of me, and in me, and I in all of them. — Richard Llewellyn

...[I]t is pain to think of innocence in ruin. — Richard Llewellyn

Let all things be done in order, with right and decency. Those things are worth a man's life or two. Life without would be a hell, indeed. — Richard Llewellyn

There is a wholeness about a woman, of shape, and sound, and colour, and taste, and smell, a quietness that is her, that you will want to hold tightly to you, all, every little bit, without words, in peace, for jealousy for the things that escape the clumsiness of your arms. So you feel when you love.
... For her womaness is a blessing about her, and you are tender to put your hands upon her and kiss, not with lust, but with the joy of one returning to a lost one. — Richard Llewellyn

The rights of man are poor things beside the eyes of hungry children. Their hurts are keener than the soreness of injustice. — Richard Llewellyn

Bronwen came over plenty of Saturdays after that, but I was always shy of her. I think I must have fallen in love with Bronwen even then and I must have been in love with her all my life since. It is silly to think a child could fall in love. If you think about it like that, mind. But I am the child that was, and nobody knows how I feel, except only me. And I think I fell in love with Bronwen that Saturday on the Hill.
Still, that is past. — Richard Llewellyn

There is good a cup of tea is when you are feeling low. Thin, and plenty of milk, and brown sugar in the crystal, in a big cup so that when your mouth is used to the heat you can drink instead of sipping. Every part of you inside you that seems to have gone to sleep comes lively again. A good friend of mine is a cup of tea, indeed. When — Richard Llewellyn

Foolish is the mind of a man to make bogeys for itself and to live in terrors of fear for things which lack of the substance of truth. — Richard Llewellyn

Women have their own braveries, their own mighty courageousness that is of woman, and not to be compared with the courage shown by man. — Richard Llewellyn

And I wanted to be as I had been yesterday, a boy again, without the heaviness of doubt, this pressing fear, this new treachery that lifted to realms of singing gold, and in a little space, flung to pits of night. — Richard Llewellyn

O, blackberry tart, with berries as big as your thumb, purple and black, and thick with juice, and a crust to endear them that will go to cream in your mouth, and both passing down with such a taste that will make you close your eyes and wish you might live for ever in the wideness of that rich moment. — Richard Llewellyn

In that quietness they were speaking their own language, with their eyes, with the way they stood, with what they put into the air about them, each knowing what the other was saying, and having strength one from the other, for they had been learning through forty years of being together, and their minds were one. — Richard Llewellyn

Happy we were the, for we had a good house, and good food and good work. — Richard Llewellyn

Man is a coward in space, for he is by himself. — Richard Llewellyn

The nose. It can be a nuisance in winter and such a blessing before a meal. — Richard Llewellyn

Sing, then. Sing, indeed, with shoulders back, and head up so that song might go to the roof and beyond to the sky. Mass on mass of tone, with a hard edge, and rich with quality, every single note a carpet of colour woven from basso profundo, and basso, and baritone, and alto, and tenor, and soprano, and also mezzo, and contralto, singing and singing, until life and all things living are become a song.
O, Voice of Man, organ of most lovely might. — Richard Llewellyn

For it is discomfort's own essence to be near a man and to feel him in torture of misery, to feel with him the very pain of the misery, and yet to be unable to help. — Richard Llewellyn

I cannot tell you ... my little one. No man can tell you. No ... I cannot answer you, for nothing I could say would be the truth. The truth is beyond us, and is not in us. We go forward in faith. That is all.
Nobody can tell us why the Son of Man had to go. He was Prince of Light. He could have ruled the world. But He was crucified, and when men would have fought for Him, He told them to put up their swords. He allowed a rabble to crucify Him. Why did He die in that way when He could have chosen any? To save us, we know. But why did He die in only that way? It was ordained? Then dare we say that Dilys was ordained to die as she did? — Richard Llewellyn

It is strange that the mind will forget so much, and yet hold a picture of flowers that have been dead for thirty years or more ... — Richard Llewellyn

A man will will never know a woman until he knows her work. — Richard Llewellyn

As your father keeps clean his lamp to have good light, so keep clean your spirit. — Richard Llewellyn

Now you know what hurt it brings to women when men come into the world. Remember, and make it up to your Mama and to all women. — Richard Llewellyn

The world was created for Mankind, not for some of mankind. — Richard Llewellyn

You will only learn in a fight how much you've got to learn. — Richard Llewellyn

O, there is lovely to feel a book, a good book, firm in the hand, for its fatness holds rich promise, and you are hot inside to think of good hours to come. — Richard Llewellyn

Glorious is the Voice of Man, and sweet is the music of the harp. — Richard Llewellyn

Well, my mother said, and she was not exactly smiling, but as though she was wrapping a smile inside a thought. — Richard Llewellyn

The quiet troubling of the river, and the clean, washed stones, and the green all about, and the trees trying to drown their shadows, and the mountain going up and up behind, there is beautiful it was. — Richard Llewellyn

But to talk of the world that is hidden in every woman is a journey of pain, for the words are not in use to tell of it, and to use the words that are is only a hopping on uneven crutches. — Richard Llewellyn

Hard it is to suffer through stupid people. They make you feel sorry for them, and if your sorrow is as great as your hurt, you will allow them to go free of punishment, for their eyes are the eyes of dogs that have done wrong and know it, and are afraid. — Richard Llewellyn

It is simple. Men lose their birthrights for a mess of pottage only if they stop using the gifts given them by God for their betterment. By prayer. That is the first and greatest gift. use the gift of prayer. Ask for strength of mind, and a clear vision. Then sense. Use your sense. Not all of us are born for greatness, but all of us have sense. Make use of it. Think. Think long and well. By prayer and good thought you will conquer all enemies ... Behold, the night is coming. Prepare, for the time is at hand. — Richard Llewellyn

There is a spirit greater than you, always within reach of you, but he only comes to take charge when your own spirit is lost, and cries out in his own tongue, which you cannot know but only feel, and it is in feeling that you will have orders. Yet not even in feeling, for I felt nothing, only surprise that I was going forward. — Richard Llewellyn

Listen to me. Forget all you saw. Leave it. Take your mind from it. It has nothing to do with you. But use it for experience. Now you know what hurt it brings to women when men come into the world. Remember, and make it up to your Mama and to all women ... And another thing let it do. There is no room for pride in any man. There is no room for unkindness. There is not room for wit at the expense of others. All men are born the same, and equal. As you saw today, so come Captains and the Kings and the Tinkers and the Tailors. Let the memory direct your dealings with men and women. And be sure to take good care of Mama. Is it? — Richard Llewellyn

The man who goes to the top is the man who has something to say and says it when circumstances warrant. Men who keep silent underdressed are moral cowards. — Richard Llewellyn

Dear little house that I have lived in, there is happiness you have seen, even before I was born. In you is my life, and all the people I have loved are a part of you, so to go out of you, and leave you, is to leave myself. — Richard Llewellyn

My business is anything that comes between men and the Spirit of God. — Richard Llewellyn

It is strange how you shall hate a man, and yet pity him from the depths. — Richard Llewellyn

I wonder is happiness only an essence of good living, that you shall taste only once or twice while you live, and then go on living with the taste in your mouth, and wishing you had the fullness of it solid between your teeth, like a good meal that you have tasted and cherished and look back in your mind to eat again. — Richard Llewellyn

How can there be fury felt for things that are gone to dust. — Richard Llewellyn

Happy we were then, for we had a good house, and good food, and good work. There was nothing to do outside at night, except chapel, or choir, or penny-readings, sometimes. But even so, we always found plenty to do until bedtime, for if we were not studying or reading, then we were making something out back, or over the mountain singing somewhere. I can remember no time when there was not plenty to be done.
I wonder what has happened in fifty years to change it all ... But when people stop being friends with their mother and fathers, and itching to be out of the house, and going mad for other things to do, I cannot think. It is like an asthma, that comes on a man quickly. He has no notion how he had it, but there it is, and nothing can cure it. — Richard Llewellyn

O, the love of woman is a glorious thing, and strange in its ways of work. — Richard Llewellyn

Everywhere was singing, all over the house was singing, and outside the house was alive with singing, and the very air was song. — Richard Llewellyn

Never mind what you feel. Think. Watch. Think again. And then one step at a time to put things right. As a mason puts one block at a time. To build solid and good. So with thought. Think. Build one thought at a time. Think solid. Then act. Is it? — Richard Llewellyn

But you have gone now, all of you that were so beautiful when you were quick with life. Yet not gone, for you are still a living truth inside my mind.
So how are you dead, my brothers and sisters, and all of you , when you live with me as surely as I live with myself. — Richard Llewellyn

It hurt to think that a boy would not have him at his value of himself. — Richard Llewellyn

Then all the winds of Heaven ran to join hands and bend a shoulder, to bring down to me the sound of a noble hymn that was heavy with the perfume of Time That Has Gone.
The glittering multitudes were singing most mightily, and my heart was in blood to hear a Voice that I knew.
The Men of the Valley were marching again.
My Fathers were singing up there.
Loud, triumphant, the anthem rose, and I knew, in some deep place within, that in the royal music was a prayer to lift up my spirit, to be of good cheer, to keep the faith, that Death was only an end to the things that are made of clay, and to fight, without heed of wounds, all that brings death to the Spirit, with Glory to the Eternal Father, forever, Amen. — Richard Llewellyn

Before you are much older ... you will have policemen here to stay. A magistrate will be next. Then perhaps even a jail. And the counterparts of those things are hunger and want, and misery and idleness. The night is coming. Watch and pray. — Richard Llewellyn

She is a slut," I said, "because she went up on the mountain with a man, instead of to bed with her husband. Is it, Dada?"
My father was quiet for a little, with his back to me, looking down into the Valley.
"Yes," my father said. "That is why she is a slut."
"Then what is Chris Phillips, then?" I asked.
"He did very wrong," said my father, but there was no body in his voice. "Mr. Gruffydd will have a word with him."
"But not in front of all the people," I said. "If Meillyn Lewis is a slut, Chris Phillips is a coward. And I know which of them is the worst. — Richard Llewellyn

[F]or there are times when bed is the only place on earth where peace is to be had, and that was one of them. — Richard Llewellyn

You know your Bible too well and life too little. — Richard Llewellyn

And under my breath I was telling it to hisht and for shame, and if I had known any swearing I would have had that in, too. — Richard Llewellyn

Let the Unions become engines for the working people to right their wrongs. Not benefit societies, or burial clubs. Let the Unions become civilian regiments to fight in the cause of the people. — Richard Llewellyn

There is a fool you feel when somebody is saying they are sorry for doing something to you. It is worse than if you had done something yourself. So you are having the worst of it twice, start and finish. — Richard Llewellyn

Strange that only a little problem of your own will take your mind far from a tragedy belonging to others. — Richard Llewellyn

I saw my father as a man, and not, as a man who was my father. — Richard Llewellyn

It is strange how loud little sounds become when you are in the dark and doing something wrong. — Richard Llewellyn

What is there, in the mention of Time To Come, that is so quick to wrench at the heart, to inflict a pain in the senses that is like the run of a sword, I wonder. Perhaps we feel our youngness taken from us without the soothe of sliding years, and the pains of age that come to stand unseen beside us and grow more solid as the minutes pass, are with us solid on the instant, and we sense them, but when we try to assess them, they are back again in their places down in Time To Come, ready to meet us coming. — Richard Llewellyn

There is silly are people. You must suffer, or cause others to suffer, before you will have respect of one kind or the other from them ... I will not stand to be looked at by anybody, especially when the looking is done with wrong thinking. — Richard Llewellyn

What is ordinary to you maybe a desert of woeful newness to another. — Richard Llewellyn

You must learn to tell worry from thought and thought from prayer. Sometimes a light will go from your life, and a thought becomes a prayer til you are strong enough to stand under the weight of your own thought again. — Richard Llewellyn