Meditation is the soul's perspective glass.Collection: Wisdom
Perfection is immutable. But for things imperfect, change is the way to perfect them.Collection: Change
The greatest results in life are usually attained by simple means and the exercise of ordinary qualities. These may for the most part be summed up in these two - common sense and perseverance.Collection: Motivational
By gaming we lose both our time and treasure - two things most precious to the life of man.Collection: Men
To trust God when we have securities in our iron chest is easy, but not thankworthy; but to depend on him for what we cannot see, as it is more hard for man to do, so it is more acceptable to God.Collection: Men
It is much safer to reconcile an enemy than to conquer him; victory may deprive him of his poison, but reconciliation of his will.Collection: Enemy
Virtue dwells at the head of a river, to which we cannot get but by rowing against the stream.Collection: Rivers
Time is like a ship which never anchors; while I am on board, I had better do those things that may profit me at my landing, than practice such as shall cause my commitment when I come ashore.Collection: Time
The greatest results in life are usually attained by common sense and perseverance.Collection: Inspirational
Works without faith are like a fish without water, it wants the element it should live in. A building without a basis cannot stand; faith is the foundation, and every good action is as a stone laid.Collection: Faith
Promises may get friends, but it is performance that must nurse and keep them.Collection: Friendship
Every man should study conciseness in speaking; it is a sign of ignorance not to know that long speeches, though they may please the speaker, are the torture of the hearer.Collection: Ignorance
It is rare to see a rich man religious; for religion preaches restraint, and riches prompt to unlicensed freedom.Collection: Religious
Where there is plenty, charity is a duty, not a courtesyCollection: Charity
Pleasures can undo a man at any time, if yielded to.Collection: Men
Zeal without humanity is like a ship without a rudder, liable to be stranded at any momentCollection: Humanity
Fear, if it be not immoderate, puts a guard about us that does watch and defend us; but credulity keeps us naked, and lays us open to all the sly assaults of ill-intending men: it was a virtue when man was in his innocence; but since his fall, it abuses those that own it.Collection: Fall
In business, three things are necessary: knowledge, temper, and time.Collection: Patience
Business is the salt of life, which not only gives a grateful smack to it, but dries up those crudities that would offend, preserves from putrefaction and drives off all those blowing flies that would corrupt it.Collection: Business
To go to law is for two persons to kindle a fire, at their own cost, to warm others and singe themselves to cinders; and because they cannot agree as to what is truth and equity, they will both agree to unplume themselves that others may be decorated with their feathers.Collection: Fire
When two friends part they should lock up one another's secrets, and interchange their keys.Collection: Keys
Some are so uncharitable as to think all women bad, and others are so credulous as to believe they are all good. All will grant her corporeal frame more wonderful and more beautiful than man's. And can we think God would put a worse soul into a better body?Collection: Beautiful
Knowledge is the treasure of the mind, but discretion is the key to it, without which it is useless. The practical part of wisdom is the best.Collection: Keys
Irresolution is a worse vice than rashness. He that shoots best may sometimes miss the mark; but he that shoots not at all can never hit it. Irresolution loosens all the joints of a state; like an ague, it shakes not this nor that limb, but all the body is at once in a fit. The irresolute man is lifted from one place to another; so hatcheth nothing, but addles all his actions.Collection: Men
How many would die did not hope sustain them.Collection: Anticipation
All men will be Peters in their bragging tongue, and most men will be Peters in their base denial; but few men will be Peters in their quick repentance.Collection: Men
The noblest part of a friend is an honest boldness in the notifying of errors. He that tells me of a fault, aiming at my good, I must think him wise and faithful--wise in spying that which I see not; faithful in a plain admonishment, not tainted with flattery.Collection: Friends
He that despairs degrades the Deity, and seems to intimate that He is insufficient, or not just to His word; and in vain hath read the scriptures, the world, and man.Collection: Men
Perfection is immutable. But for things imperfect change is the way to perfect them. It gets the name of wilfulness when it will not admit of a lawful change to the better. Therefore constancy without knowledge cannot be always good. In things ill it is not virtue, but an absolute vice.Collection: Change
God has made no one absolute.Collection: Made
There is no belittling worse than to over praise a man.Collection: Men
Vice is a peripatetic, always in progression.Collection: Vices
Human life has not a surer friend, nor oftentimes a greater enemy, than hope. It is the miserable man's god, which in the hardest gripe of calamity never fails to yield to him beams of comfort. It is the presumptuous man's devil, which leads him a while in a smooth way, and then suddenly breaks his neck.Collection: Hope
Take heed of a speedy professing friend; love is never lasting which flames before it burns.Collection: Friends
Praise has different effects, according to the mind it meets with; it makes a wise man modest, but a fool more arrogant, turning his weak brain giddy.Collection: Inspirational
Gold is the fool's curtain, which hides all his defects from the world.Collection: Gold
Discontent is like ink poured into water, which fills the whole fountain full of blackness.Collection: Water
Surely, if we considered detraction to be bred of envy, nested only in deficient minds, we should find that the applauding of virtue would win us far more honor than the seeking slyly to disparage it. That would show we loved what we commended, while this tells the world we grudge at what we want in ourselves.Collection: Winning
Truth and fidelity are the pillars of the temple of the world; when these are broken, the fabric falls, and crushes all to pieces.Collection: Crush
Contemplation is necessary to generate an object, but action must propagate it.Collection: Deeds
It is a most unhappy state to be at a distance with God: man needs no greater infelicity than to be left to himself.Collection: God
A sentence well couched takes both the sense and understanding. I love not those cart-rope speeches that are longer than the memory of man can fathom.Collection: Memories
Hope is to a man as a bladder to a learning swimmer--it keeps him from sinking in the bosom of the waves, and by that help he may attain the exercise; but yet it many times makes him venture beyond his height, and then if that breaks, or a storm rises, he drowns without recovery. How many would die, did not hope sustain them! How many have died by hoping too much! This wonder we find in Hope, that she is both a flatterer and a true friend.Collection: Hope
If ever I should affect injustice, it would be in this, that I might do courtesies and receive none.Collection: Would Be
Reason and right give the quickest despatch.Collection: Giving
Discontents are sometimes the better part of our life. I know not well which is the most useful; joy I may choose for pleasure, but adversities are the best for profit; and sometimes those do so far help me, as I should, without them, want much of the joy I have.Collection: Adversity
I love the man that is modestly valiant; that stirs not till he most needs, and then to purpose. A continued patience I commend not.Collection: Men
Arrogance is a weed which grows upon a dunghill; it is from the rankness of the soil that she has her height and spreadings: witness, clowns, fools, and fellows, who from nothing, are lifted up some few steps on fortune's ladder: where, seeing the glorious representment of honour above them, they are so eager to embrace it, that they strive to leap thither at once, and by over-reaching themselves in the way, they fail of the end, and fall.Collection: Weed
To be gentle is the test of a lady.Collection: Tests
There is no detraction worse than to overpraise a man, for if his worth proves short of what report doth speak of him, his own actions are ever giving the lie to his honor.Collection: Lying