Jeremy Taylor
Meditation is the tongue of the soul and the language of our spirit; and our wandering thoughts in prayer are but the neglects of meditation and recessions from that duty; according as we neglect meditation, so are our prayers imperfect, - meditation being the soul of prayer and the intention of our spirit.Collection: Prayer
God is everywhere present by His power. He rolls the orbs of heaven with His hand; He fixes the earth with His foot; He guides all creatures with His eye, and refreshes them with His influence; He makes the powers of hell to shake with His terrors, and binds the devils with His word.Collection: God
To secure a contented spirit, measure your desires by your fortune, and not your fortune by your desires.Collection: Desire
Mistake not. Those pleasures are not pleasures that trouble the quiet and tranquillity of thy life.Collection: Mistake
Thus Nero went up and down Greece and challenged the fiddlers at their trade. Æropus, a Macedonian king, made lanterns; Harcatius, the king of Parthia, was a mole-catcher; and Biantes, the Lydian, filed needles.Collection: Kings
Friendship is the allay of our sorrows, the ease of our passions, the discharge of our oppressions, the sanctuary to our calamities, the counselor of our doubts, the clarity of our minds.Collection: Friendship
The pharisees minded what God spoke, but not what He intended. They were busy in the outward work of the hand, but incurious of the affections and choice of the heart. So God was served in the letter, they did not much inquire into His purpose; and therefore they were curious to wash their hands, but cared not to purify their hearts.Collection: Heart
Whoever is a hypocrite in his religion mocks God, presenting to Him the outside and reserving the inward for his enemy.Collection: Hypocrite
Friendship is the strongest bond in the world.Collection: Friendship
God fails not to sow blessings in the furrows.Collection: God
God is pleased with no music below so much as with the thanksgiving songs of relieved widows and supported orphans; of rejoicing, comforted, and thankful persons.Collection: Inspiring
since God has appointed one remedy for all the evils in the world and that is a contented spirit.Collection: Evil
Humility is like a tree, whose root when it sets deepest in the earth rises higher, and spreads fairer and stands surer, and lasts longer, and every step of its descent is like a rib of iron.Collection: Humble
Certain it is, that as nothing can better do it; so there is nothing greater, for which God made our tongues, next to reciting His praises, than to minister comfort to a weary soul.Collection: Sympathy
Temperance is reason's girdle and passion's bridle, the strength of the soul and the foundation of virtue.Collection: Passion
A great fear, when it is ill-managed, is the parent of superstition; but a discreet and well-guided fear produces religion.Collection: Fear
Aquinas was once asked, with what compendium a man might become learned? He answered "By reading of one book.Collection: Book
When thou receivest praise, take it indifferently, and return it to God, the giver of the gift, or blesser of the action.Collection: Return
So long as idleness is quite shut out from our lives, all the sins of wantonness, softness, and effeminacy are prevented; and there is but little room for temptation.Collection: Long
I have seen the sun with a little ray of distant light challenge all the powers of darkness, and without violence and noise, climbing up the hill, hath made night so retire that its memory was lost in the joys and sprightliness of the morning.Collection: Morning
God hath prepared a little coronet or special reward (extraordinary and beside the great crown of all faithful souls) for those who have not defiled themselves with women.Collection: Women
To be perpetually longing and impatiently desirous of anything, so that a man cannot abstain from it, is to lose a man's liberty, and to become a servant of meat and drink, or smoke.Collection: Men
Impatience turns an ague into a fever, a fever to the plague, fear into despair, anger into rage, loss into madness, and sorrow to amazement.Collection: Loss
For there is some virtue or other to be exercised, whatever happens.Collection: Virtue
The Lord's Prayer is short and mysterious, and, like the treasures of the Spirit, full of wisdom and latent senses: it is not improper to draw forth those excellencies which are intended and signified by every petition, that by so excellent an authority we may know what it is lawful to beg of God.Collection: Prayer
Too quick a sense of constant infelicity.Collection: Constant
Lust is a captivity of the reason and an enraging of the passions. It hinders business and distracts counsel. It sins against the body and weakens the soul.Collection: Passion
Faith converses with the angels, and antedates the hymns of glory.Collection: Faith
Faith gives new light to the soul, but it does not put our eyes out; and what God hathgivenusinournature could never be intended as a snare to Religion, or engage us to believe a lie.Collection: Lying
If thou has a bundle of thorns in thy lot, there is no need to sit down on it.Collection: Needs
Teach us to pray often, that we may pray oftener.Collection: Prayer
The private and personal blessings we enjoy- the blessings of immunity, safeguard, liberty and integrity- deserve the thanksgiving of a whole life.Collection: Thanksgiving
All dreams reflect inborn creativity and ability to face and solve life's problems.Collection: Dream
The private devotions and secret offices of religion are like the refreshing of a garden with the distilling and petty drops of a waterpot; but addressed from the temple, they are like ram from heaven.Collection: Prayer
This grace (purity of intention) is so excellent that it sanctifies the most common actions of our life and yet is so necessary that without it, the very best actions of our devotion are imperfect and vicious.Collection: Grace
To preserve a man alive in the midst of so many chances and hostilities, is as great a miracle as to create him.Collection: Life
The thing framed says that nothing framed it; the tongue never made itself to speak, and yet talks against him that did; saying that which is made, is, and that which made it, is not. But this folly is infinite as hell, as much without light or bound as the chaos or the primitive nothing.Collection: Light
Covetousness teaches people to be cruel and crafty, industrious and evil, full of care and malice; and after all this, it is for no good to itself, for it dares not spend those heaps of treasure which it has snatched.Collection: People
In matters of conscience that is the best sense which every wise man takes in before he hath sullied his understanding with the designs of sophisters and interested persons.Collection: Wise
Laughing, if loud, ends with a deep sigh; and all pleasures have a sting in the tail, though they carry beauty in the face.Collection: Laughter
A pure mind in a chaste body is the mother of wisdom and deliberation; sober counsels and ingenuous actions; open deportment and sweet carriage; sincere principles and unprejudiced understanding; love of God and self-denial; peace and confidence; holCollection: Mother
Drunkenness is an immoderate affection and use of drink. That I call immoderation that is besides or beyond that order of good things for which God hath given us the use of drink.Collection: Order
So are the early unions of an unfixed Marriage: watchful and observant, jealous and busy, inquisitive and careful, and apt to take alarm at every unkind word. For infirmities do not manifest themselves in the first Scenes, but in the succession of a long Society.Collection: Jealous
Man and wife are equally concerned, to avoid all offence of each other, in the beginning of their conversation. Every little thing can blast an infant blossom.Collection: Men
Nothing is greater or more fearful sacrilege than to prostitute the great name of God to the petulancy of an idle tongue.Collection: God
Ye shall fear every man his mother and his father.Collection: Mother
It is a little learning, and but a little, which makes men conclude hastily. Experience and humility teach modesty and fear.Collection: Humility
Many are idly busy; Domitian was busy, but then it was in catching flies.Collection: Laziness
Curiosity is the direct incontinence of the spirit.Collection: Curiosity