Quote collection
46 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Ahab cast a covetous eye at Naboth's vineyard, David a lustful eye at Bathsheba. The eye is the pulse of the soul; as physicians judge of the heart by the pulse, so we by the eye; a rolling eye, a roving heart. The good eye keeps minute time, and strikes when it should; the lustful, crochet-time, and so puts all out of tune."
"The patient man is merry indeed.... The jailers that watch him are but his pages of honour, and his very dungeon but the lower side of the vault of heaven. He kisseth the wheel that must kill him; and thinks the stairs of the scaffold of his martyrdom but so many degrees of his ascent to glory. The tormentors are weary of him. the beholders have pitty on him, all men wonder at him; and while he seems below all men, below himself, he is above nature. He hath so overcome hlmself that nothing can conquer him."
"We know there is a sun in heaven, yet we cannot see what matter it is made of, but perceive it only by the beams, light and heat. Election is a sun, the eyes of eagles cannot see it, yet we may find it in the heat of vocation, in the light of illumination, in the beams of good works."
"Woman takes her being from man, man takes his well being from woman."
"Death is as near to the young as to the old; here is all the difference: death stands behind the young man's back, before the old man's face."
"Sins are so remitted, as if they had never been committed."
"Let us not make the poor our friends by our alms, not our enemies by our scorns. We had better have the ears of God full of their prayers, than heaps of money in our own coffers with their curses."
"Beauty is like an almanack: if it lasts a year it is well."
"Will you trust your five senses above the four Gospels?"
"Baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: there are three distinct persons: in the Name, not names; there is one essence."
"A drunkard is the annoyance of modesty, the trouble of civility, the spoil of wealth, the distraction of reason. He is the brewer's agent, the tavern and alehouse benefactor, the beggar's companion, the constable's trouble, his wife's woe, his children's sorrow, his neighbours scoff, his own shame."
"The ambitious climb high and perilous stairs, and never care how to come down; the desire of rising hath swallowed up their fear of a fall."
"Ever tell me of a humble heart where I see a stubborn knee."
"If thou wilt fly from God, the devil will lend thee both spurs and a horse."
"His father was no man's friend but his own, and he is no man's for else."
"The devil makes his Christmas-pie of lawyers' tongues and clerks' fingers."
"Blessed be God, I not only begin praying when I kneel down, but I do not leave off praying when I rise up."
"Better a holy discord than a profane concord."
"He who sends the storm steers the vessel."
"Half our virtue arises from our being out of the way of temptation."