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TILLOTSON, John Quotes
(1630-1694), English divine, Archbishop of Canterbury
There is a pleasure in admiration; and this it is which properly causeth admiration, when we discover a great deal in an object which we understand to be excellent; and yet we see more beyond that, which our understandings cannot fully reach and comprehend.
Though all afflictions are evils in themselves, yet they are good for us, because they discover to us our disease and tend to our cure.
The short sayings of wise and good men are of great value, like the dust of gold, or the sparks of diamonds.
The covetous man heaps up riches, not to enjoy, but to have them; he starves himself in the midst of plenty; cheats and robs himself of that which is his own, and makes a hard shift to be as poor and miserable with a great estate as any man can be without it.
There is no readier way for a man to bring his own worth into question, than by endeavoring to detract from the worth of other men.
A good word is an easy obligation; but not to speak ill, requires only our silence, which costs us nothing.
In our pursuit of the things of this world, we usually prevent enjoyment by expectation; we anticipate our happiness, and eat out the heart and sweetness of worldly pleasures by delightful forethoughts of them; so that when we come to possess them, they do not answer the expectation, nor satisfy the desires which were raised about them, and they vanish into nothing.
A more glorious victory cannot be gained over another man, than this, that when the injury began on his part, the kindness should begin on ours.
To be able to bear provocation is an argument of great reason, and to forgive it of a great mind.
If God were not a necessary being of himself, he might almost seem to be made for the use and benefit of men.
When we have practised good actions awhile, they become easy; when they are easy, we take pleasure in them; when they please us, we do them frequently; and then, by frequency of act, they grow into a habit.
Man courts happiness in a thousand shapes; and the faster he follows it the swifter it flies from him. Almost everything promiseth happiness to us at a distance, but when we come nearer, either we fall short of it, or it falls short of our expectation; and it is hard to say which of these is the greatest disappointment. Our hopes are usually bigger than the enjoyment can satisfy; and an evil long feared, besides that it may never come, is many times more painful and troublesome than the evil itself when it comes.
There is little pleasure in the world that is sincere and true beside that of doing our duty and doing good.—No other is comparable to this.
Malice and hatred are very fretting, and make our own minds sore and uneasy.
It is hard to personate and act a part long; for where truth is not at the bottom nature will always be endeavoring to return, and will peep out and betray herself one time or another.
The idle, who are neither wise for this world nor the next, are emphatically fools.
He that does not know those things which are of use and necessity for him to know, is but an ignorant man, whatever he may know besides.
In matters of great concern, and which must be done, there is no surer argument of a weak mind than irresolution—to be undetermined where the case is plain, and the necessity urgent. To be always intending to live a new life, but never to find time to set about it, this is as if a man should put off eating, drinking, and sleeping, from one day and night to another, till he is starved and destroyed.
If on one side there are fair proofs, and no pretense of proof on the other, and the difficulties are more pressing on that side which is destitute of proof, I desire to know whether this be not upon the matter as satisfactory to a wise man as a demonstration.
Philosophy hath given us several plausible rules for attaining peace and tranquillity of mind, but they fall very much short of bringing men to it.
There is little pleasure in the world that is true and sincere beside the pleasure of doing our duty and doing good. I am sure no other is comparable to this.
To be always intending to live a new life, but never to find time to set about it; this is as if a man should put off eating and drinking and sleeping from one day and night to another, till he is starved and destroyed.
Is not he imprudent, who, seeing the tide making toward him apace, will sleep till the sea overwhelms him?
Profit or pleasure there is none in swearing, nor anything in men's natural tempers to incite them to it. For though some men pour out oaths so freely, as if they came naturally from them, yet surely no man is born of a swearing constitution.
Common swearing, if it have any serious meaning at all, argues in man a perpetual distrust of his own reputation, and is an acknowledgment that he thinks his bare word not to be worthy of credit. And it is so far from adorning and filling a man's discourse, that it makes it look swollen and bloated, and more bold and blustering than becomes persons of genteel and good breeding.
Take away God and religion, and men live to no purpose, without proposing any worthy and considerable end of life to themselves.
Whether religion be true or false, it must be necessarily granted to be the only wise principle and safe hypothesis for a man to live and die by.
There is no man that is to himself knowingly guilty and that carries guilt about him, but receives a sting into his soul.
In all the affairs of this world, so much reputation is, in reality, so much power.
When a man has once forfeited the reputation of his integrity, he is set fast; nothing will then serve his turn, neither truth nor falsehood.
A little wit and a great deal of ill nature will furnish a man for satire; but the greatest instance and value of wit is to commend well.
Shame is a great restraint upon sinners at first; but that soon falls off: and when men have once lost their innocence, their modesty is not like to be long troublesome to them. For impudence comes on with vice, and grows up with it. Lesser vices do not banish all shame and modesty; but great and abominable crimes harden men's foreheads, and make them shameless. When men have the heart to do a very bad thing, they seldom want the face to bear it out.
A good word is an easy obligation; but not to speak ill requires only our silence, which costs us nothing.
There is no fool equal to the sinner, who every moment ventures his soul.
Sincerity is to speak as we think, to do as we pretend and profess, to perform what we promise, and really to be what we would seem and appear to be.
Sincerity is like traveling on a plain, beaten road, which commonly brings a man sooner to his journey's end than byways, in which men often lose themselves.
Mere success is one of the worst arguments in the world of a good cause, and the most improper to satisfy conscience: and yet in the issue it is the most successful of all other arguments, and does in a very odd, but effectual, way, satisfy the consciences of a great many men, by showing them their interest.
The best people need afflictions for trial of their virtue. How can we exercise the grace of contentment, if all things succeed well; or that of forgiveness, if we have no enemies?
Truth is always consistent with itself, and needs nothing to help it out; it is always near at hand and sits upon our lips, and is ready to drop out before we are aware; whereas a lie is troublesome, and sets a man's invention on the rack, and one trick needs a great many more of the same kind to make it good.
The vicious man lives at random, and acts by chance, for he that walks by no rule can carry on no settled or steady design.
Was ever any wicked man free from the stings of a guilty conscience—from a secret dread of the divine displeasure, and of the vengeance of another world?
There are two things in which men, in other things wise enough, do usually miscarry; in putting off the making of their wills and their repentance till it be too late.
True wisdom is a thing very extraordinary. Happy are they that have it: and next to them, not the many that think they have it, but the few that are sensible of their own defects and imperfections, and know that they have it not.
When wit trangresses decency, it degenerates into insolence and impiety.
A good word is an easy obligation; but not to speak ill requires only our silence, which costs us nothing.
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