John Tillotson
Religion in a magistrate strengthens his authority, because it procures veneration, and gains a reputation to it. In all the affairs of this world, so much reputation is in reality so much power.Collection: Reality
If they be principles evident of themselves, they need nothing to evidence them.Collection: Principles
Men sunk in the greatest darkness imaginable retain some sense and awe of the Deity.Collection: God
Some things will not bear much zeal; and the more earnest we are about them, the less we recommend ourselves to the approbation of sober and considerate men.Collection: Men
Malice and hatred are very fretting and vexatious, and apt to make our minds sore and uneasy; but he that can moderate these affections will find ease in his mind.Collection: Hatred
There is no man that is knowingly wicked but is guilty to himself; and there is no man that carries guilt about him but he receives a sting in his soul.Collection: Men
True wisdom is a thing very extraordinary. Happy are they that have it: and next to them, not those many that think they have it, but those few that are sensible of their own defects and imperfections, and know that they have it not.Collection: Inspirational
Next to the wicked lives of men, nothing is so great a disparagement and weakening to religion as the divisions of Christians.Collection: Christian
If God were not a necessary Being of Himself, He might almost seem to be made for the use and benefit of men.Collection: Men
For a Man cannot believe a Miracle without relying upon Sense, nor Transubstantiation without renouncing it. So that never were any two things so ill coupled together as the Doctrine of Christianity and that of Transubstantiation, because they draw several ways, and are ready to strangle one another: For the main Evidence of the Christian Doctrine, which is Miracles, is resolved into the certainty of Sense, but this Evidence is clear and point blank against Transubstantiation.Collection: Christian
And as for Pleasure, there is little in this World that is true and sincere, besides the Pleasure of doing our Duty, and of doing good.Collection: World
Many man's scruples lie almost wholly about obedience to authority and compliance with indifferent customs, but very seldom about the dangers of disobedience and unpeaceableness and rending in pieces the Church of Christ by needless separations and endless divisions.Collection: Peace
Zeal is fit for wise men, but flourishes chiefly among fools.Collection: Wise
In all the affairs of this world, so much reputation is in reality so much power.Collection: Reality
Wickedness is a kind of voluntary frenzy, and a chosen distraction.Collection: Wickedness
The crime of a bad example is the same whether men follow it or not, because he that gives bad example to others, does what in him lies to draw them into sin; and if they do not follow it, that is no mitigation of his fault.Collection: Lying
Truth is the shortest and nearest way to our end, carrying us thither in a straight line.Collection: Truth
Surely modesty never hurt any cause; and the confidence of man seems to me to be much like the wrath of man.Collection: Confidence
With the history of Moses no book in the world, in point of antiquity, can contend.Collection: Bible
No man's body is as strong as his appetites, but Heaven has corrected the boundlessness of his voluptuous desires by stinting his strength and contracting his capacities.Collection: Strong
The little and short sayings of nice And excellent men are of great value, like the dust of gold, or the least sparks of diamonds.Collection: Nice
When a man has once forfeited the reputation of his integrity, he is set fast, and nothing will then serve his turn, neither truth nor falsehood.Collection: Integrity
Abstinence is many times very helpful to the end of religion.Collection: Helpful
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 so plain, and the necessity so 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, and drinking, and sleeping, from one day and night to another, till he is starved and destroyed.Collection: Drinking
The gospel chargeth us with piety towards God, and justice and charity to men, and temperance and chastity in reference to ourselves.Collection: Men
None so nearly disposed to scoffing at religion as those who have accustomed themselves to swear on trifling occasions.Collection: Scoffing
If a man were only to deal in the world for a day, and should never have occasion to converse more with mankind, never more need their good opinion or good word, it were then no great matter (speaking as to the concernments of this world), if a man spent his reputation all at once, and ventured it at one throw; but if he be to continue in the world, and would have the advantage of conversation while he is in it, let him make use of truth and sincerity in all his words and actions; for nothing but this will last and hold out to the end.Collection: Men
If the show of any thing be good for any thing, I am sure sincerity is better; for why does any man dissemble, or seem to be that which he is not, but because he thinks it good to have such a quality as he pretends to?Collection: Thinking
There is one way whereby we may secure our riches, and make sure friends to ourselves of them,--by laying them out in charity.Collection: Charity