Francis Quarles
Reason can discover things only near,--sees nothing that's above her.Collection: Reason
No labor is hard, no time is long, wherein the glory of eternity is the mark we level at.Collection: Long
With a bloody flux of oaths vows deep revenge.Collection: Revenge
In the commission of evil, fear no man so much as thyself; another is but one witness against thee, thou art a thousand; another thou mayest avoid, thyself thou canst not. Wickedness is its own punishment.Collection: Art
Death aims with fouler spiteAt fairer marks.Collection: Mark
Money is both the generation and corruption of purchased honor; honor is both the child and slave of potent money: the credit which honor hath lost, money hath found. When honor grew mercenary, money grew honorable. The way to be truly noble is to contemn both.Collection: Money
False world, thou ly'st: thou canst not lend The least delight: Thy favours cannot gain a friend, They are so slight.Collection: Delight
Take heed thou trust not the deceitful lap Of wanton Dalilah; the world's a trap.Collection: Lap
The grave is sooner cloy'd than men's desire.Collection: Men
What well-advised ear regards What earth can say? Thy words are gold, but thy rewards Are painted clay.Collection: Gold
A lamb appears a lion, and we fear Each bush we see's a bear.Collection: Fear
Shine Son of glory, and my sinnes are goneLike twinkling Starres before the rising Sunne.Collection: Son
Even such is man, whose glory lendsHis life a blaze or two, and ends.Collection: Men
Knowledge descries; wisdom applies.Collection: Knowledge
Sin is a basilisk whose eyes are full of venom. If the eye of thy soul see her first, it reflects her own poison and kills her; if she see thy soul, unseen, or seen too late, with her poison, she kills thee: since therefore thou canst not escape thy sin, let not thy sin escape thy observation.Collection: Eye
Though virtue give a ragged livery, she gives a golden cognizance; if her service make thee poor, blush not. Thy poverty may disadvantage thee, but not dishonor thee.Collection: Giving
Let the greatest part of the news thou hearest be the least part of what thou believest, lest the greater part of what thou believest be the least part of what is true.Collection: News
Gold is Caesar's treasure, man is God's; thy gold hath Caesar's image, and thou hast God's.Collection: Men
The way to subject all things to thyself is to subject thyself to reason; thou shalt govern many, if reason govern thee. Wouldst thou be crowned the monarch of a little world? command thyself.Collection: World
If you desire to be magnanimous, undertake nothing rashly, and fear nothing thou undertakest; fear nothing but infamy; dare anything but injury; the measure of magnanimity is neither to be rash nor timorous.Collection: Desire
Be as far from desiring the popular love as fearful to deserve the popular hate; ruin dwells in both: the one will hug thee to death; the other will crush thee to destruction: to escape the first, be not ambitious; to avoid the second, be not seditious.Collection: Love
Wrinkle not thy face with too much laughter, lest thou become ridiculous; neither wanton thy heart with too much mirth, lest thou become vain: the suburbs of folly is vain mirth, and profuseness of laughter is the city of fools.Collection: Laughter
Demean thyself more warily in thy study than in the street. If thy public actions have a hundred witnesses, thy private have a thousand. The multitude looks but upon thy actions; thy conscience looks into them: the multitude may chance to excuse thee, if not acquit thee; thy conscience will accuse thee, if not condemn thee.Collection: Retirement
If thou desire to see thy child virtuous, let him not see his father's vices: thou canst not rebuke that in them, that they behold practised in thee; till reason be ripe, examples direct more than precepts: such as thy behaviour is before thy children's faces, such commonly is theirs behind their parents' backs.Collection: Children
Diogenes found more rest in his tub than Alexander on his throne.Collection: Thrones
Immortal life is something to be earned, By slow self-conquest, comradeship with Pain, And patient seeking after higher truths.Collection: Pain
Be not too great a niggard in the commendations of him that professes thy own quality: if he deserve thy praise, thou hast discovered thy judgment; if not, thy modesty: honor either returns or reflects to the giver.Collection: Honor
In the height of thy prosperity expect adversity, but fear it not. If it come not, thou art the more sweetly possessed of the happiness thou hast, and the more strongly confirmed. If it come, thou art the more gently dispossessed of the happiness thou hadst, and the more firmly prepared.Collection: Happiness
Let the foundation of thy affection be virtue, then make the building as rich as glorious as thou canst; if the foundation be beauty or wealth, and the building virtue, the foundation is too weak for the building, and it will fall: happy is he, the palace of whose affection is founded upon virtue, walled with riches glazed with beauty, and roofed with honor.Collection: Fall
The fountain of beauty is the heart and every generous thought illustrates the walls of your chamber.Collection: Inspirational
No man is born unto himself alone; Who lives unto himself, he lives to none.Collection: Life
Whosoever obeyeth the devil, casteth himself down: for the devil may suggest, compel he cannot.Collection: Devil
Be not too slow in the breaking of a sinful custom; a quick, courageous resolution is better than a gradual deliberation; in such a combat he is the bravest soldier that lays about him without fear or wit. Wit pleads, fear disheartens; he that would kill Hydra had better strike off one neck than five heads: fell the tree, and the branches are soon cut off.Collection: Cutting
Borrow neither money nor time from your neighbor; both are of equal value.Collection: Neighbor
Make thy recreation servant to thy business, lest thou become a slave to thy recreation.Collection: Leisure
Nothing is more pleasing to God than an open hand, and a closed mouth.Collection: Hands
Read not books alone, but men, and amongst them chiefly thyself.Collection: Book
Mark, how the ready hands of Death prepare: His bow is bent, and he hath notch'd his dart; He aims, he levels at thy slumb'ring heart: The wound is posting, O be wise, beware.Collection: Death
Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.Collection: Sin
Let all thy joys be as the month of May,And all thy days be as a marriage day.Collection: Wedding
Alas! fond child, How are thy thoughts beguil'd To hope for honey from a nest of wasps? Thou may'st as well Go seek for ease in hell, Or sprightly nectar from the mouths of asps. The world's a hive, From whence thou canst derive No good, but what thy soul's vexation brings: But case thou meet Some petty-petty sweet, Each drop is guarded with a thousand stings.Collection: Sweet
If opinion hath lighted the lamp of thy name, endeavor to encourage it with thy own oil, lest it go out and stink; the chronical disease of Popularity is shame; if thou be once up, beware; from fame to infamy is a beaten road.Collection: Names
If thy daughter marry well, thou hast found a son; if not, thou hast lost a daughter.Collection: Daughter
Prize not thyself by what thou hast, but by what thou art; he that values a jewel by her golden frame, or a book by her silver clasps, or a man by his vast estate, errs; if thou art not worth more than the world can make thee, thy Redeemer had a bad pennyworth, or thou an uncurious Redeemer.Collection: Art
The world's an Inn; and I her guest.Collection: World