C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Tillotson
A good word is an easy obligation, but not to speak ill requires only our silence, which costs us nothing.
A little wit and a great deal of ill-nature will furnish a man for satire; but the greatest instance of wit is to commend well.
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.
Abstinence is many times very helpful to the end of religion.
Are we proud and passionate, malicious and revengeful? Is this to be like-minded with Christ, who was meek and lowly?
Every Christian is endued with a power whereby he is enabled to resist temptations;
Fear is that passion which hath the greatest power over us, and by which God and His laws take the surest hold of us.
Great is the advantage of patience.
He who is sincere hath the easiest task in the world, for, truth being always consistent with itself, he is put to no trouble about his words and actions; it is like traveling in a plain road, which is sure to bring you to your journey’s end better than byways in which many lose themselves.
He who provides for this life, but takes no care for eternity, is wise for a moment, but a fool forever.
How often might a man, after he had jumbled a set of letters in a bag, fling them out upon the ground before they would fall into an exact poem, yea, or so much as make a good discourse in prose? And may not a little book be as easily made by chance as this great volume of the world?
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.
If our souls be immortal, this makes amends for the frailties of life and the sufferings of this state.
If people would but provide for eternity with the same solicitude and real care as they do for this life, they could not fail of heaven.
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?
If they be principles evident of themselves, they need nothing to evidence them.
In all the affairs of this world, so much reputation is in reality so much power.
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.
Integrity gains strength by use.
Is not he imprudent, who, seeing the tide making haste towards him apace, will sleep till the sea overwhelms him?
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 other.
It is pleasant to be virtuous and good, because that is to excel many others; it is pleasant to grow better, because that is to excel ourselves; it is pleasant to mortify and subdue our lusts, because that is victory; it is pleasant to command our appetites and passions, and to keep them in due order within the bounds of reason and religion, because this is empire.
It was a smart reply that Augustus made to one that ministered this comfort of the fatality of things: this was so far from giving any ease to his mind, that it was the very thing that troubled him.
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.
Men sunk in the greatest darkness imaginable retain some sense and awe of the Deity.
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.
None so nearly disposed to scoffing at religion as those who have accustomed themselves to swear on trifling occasions.
Now the best way in the world to seem to be anything is really to be what we would seem to be. Besides that it is many times as troublesome to make good the pretence of a good quality, as to have it, and if a man have it not it is ten to one but he is discovered to want it, and then all his pains and labor to seem to have it is lost.
Of all parts of wisdom, the practice is the best. Socrates was esteemed the wisest man of his time because he turned his acquired knowledge into morality, and aimed at goodness more than greatness.
Of some calamity we can have no relief but from God alone; and what would men do, in such a case, if it were not for God?
Our belief or disbelief of a thing does not alter the nature of the thing.
Piety and virtue are not only delightful for the present, but they leave peace and contentment behind them.
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.
Sincerity is to speak as we think, to do as we pretend and profess, to perform and make good what we promise, and really to be what we would seem and appear to be.
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.
Surely modesty never hurt any cause; and the confidence of man seems to me to be much like the wrath of man.
Take away God and religion, and men live to no purpose, without proposing any worthy end of life to themselves.
The angriest person in a controversy is the one most liable to be in the wrong.
The covetous man heaps up riches, not to enjoy them, but to have them; and starves himself in the midst of plenty, and most unnaturally 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.
The gospel chargeth us with piety towards God, and justice and charity to men, and temperance and chastity in reference to ourselves.
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.
There are two restraints which God has laid upon human nature, shame and fear; shame is the weaker, and has place only in those in whom there are some reminders of virtue.
There is little pleasure in the world that is true and sincere besides the pleasure of doing our duty and doing good. I am sure no other is comparable to this.
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.
There is one way whereby we may secure our riches, and make sure friends to ourselves of them,—by laying them out in charity.
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.
To be happy is not only to be freed from the pains and diseases of the body, but from anxiety and vexation of spirit; not only to enjoy the pleasures of sense, but peace of conscience and tranquillity of mind.
Virtue and vice are not arbitrary things; but there is a natural and eternal reason for goodness and virtue, and against vice and wickedness.
Was ever any wicked man free from the stings of a guilty conscience?
We anticipate our own happiness, and eat out the heart and sweetness of worldly pleasures by delightful forethought of them.
Whatever convenience may be thought to be in falsehood and dissimulation, it is soon over; but the inconvenience of it is perpetual, because t brings a man under everlasting jealousy and suspicion, so that he is not believed when he speaks the truth, nor trusted when perhaps he means honesty.
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.
When men live as if there were no God, it becomes expedient for them that there should be none; and then they endeavor to persuade themselves so.
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.
Wickedness is a kind of voluntary frenzy, and a chosen distraction.
Wisdom and understanding are synonymous words; they consist of two propositions, which are not distinct in sense, but one and the same thing variously expressed.
With the history of Moses no book in the world, in point of antiquity, can contend.
Zeal is fit for wise men, but flourishes chiefly among fools.