Sincerity is to speak as we think, to do as we pretend and profess, to perform what we promise, and really to be what we would seem and appear to be.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Sincerity
In our pursuit of the things of this world, we usually prevent enjoyment by expectation; we anticipate our happiness, and eat out the heart and sweetness of worldly pleasures by delightful forethoughts of them; so that when we come to possess them, they do not answer the expectation, nor satisfy the desires which were raised about them, and they vanish into nothing.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Expectation
The best people need afflictions for trial of their virtue. How can we exercise the grace of contentment, if all things succeed well; or that of forgiveness, if we have no enemies?
—John Tillotson
Topics: Trials
Common swearing, if it have any serious meaning at all, argues in man a perpetual distrust of his own reputation, and is an acknowledgment that he thinks his bare word not to be worthy of credit. And it is so far from adorning and filling a man’s discourse, that it makes it look swollen and bloated, and more bold and blustering than becomes persons of genteel and good breeding.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Profanity
Man courts happiness in a thousand shapes; and the faster he follows it the swifter it flies from him. Almost everything promiseth happiness to us at a distance, but when we come nearer, either we fall short of it, or it falls short of our expectation; and it is hard to say which of these is the greatest disappointment. Our hopes are usually bigger than the enjoyment can satisfy; and an evil long feared, besides that it may never come, is many times more painful and troublesome than the evil itself when it comes.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Happiness
Take away God and religion, and men live to no purpose, without proposing any worthy and considerable end of life to themselves.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Religion
A good word is an easy obligation; but not to speak ill requires only our silence, which costs us nothing.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Obligation, Silence, Words
The vicious man lives at random, and acts by chance, for he that walks by no rule can carry on no settled or steady design.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Vice
True wisdom is a thing very extraordinary. Happy are they that have it: and next to them, not the many that think they have it, but the few that are sensible of their own defects and imperfections, and know that they have it not.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Wisdom
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.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Religion
A little wit and a great deal of ill nature will furnish a man for satire; but the greatest instance and value of wit is to commend well.
—John Tillotson
Men expect that religion should cost them no pains, that happiness should drop into their laps without any design and endeavor on their part, and that, after they have done what they please while they live, God should snatch them up to heaven when they die. But though the commandments of God be not grievous, yet it is fit to let men know that they are not thus easy.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Happiness
Philosophy hath given us several plausible rules for attaining peace and tranquillity of mind, but they fall very much short of bringing men to it.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Philosophy
If God were not a necessary being of himself, he might almost seem to be made for the use and benefit of men.
—John Tillotson
Topics: God
In all the affairs of this world, so much reputation is, in reality, so much power.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Reputation
Is not he imprudent, who, seeing the tide making toward him apace, will sleep till the sea overwhelms him?
—John Tillotson
Topics: Procrastination
The idle, who are neither wise for this world nor the next, are emphatically fools.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Idleness
There is no fool equal to the sinner, who every moment ventures his soul.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Sin
There is a pleasure in admiration; and this it is which properly causeth admiration, when we discover a great deal in an object which we understand to be excellent; and yet we see more beyond that, which our understandings cannot fully reach and comprehend.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Admiration
Truth is always consistent with itself, and needs nothing to help it out; it is always near at hand and sits upon our lips, and is ready to drop out before we are aware; whereas a lie is troublesome, and sets a man’s invention on the rack, and one trick needs a great many more of the same kind to make it good.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Lying, Truth
There is little pleasure in the world that is true and sincere beside the pleasure of doing our duty and doing good. I am sure no other is comparable to this.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Happiness, Pleasure
There is no sensual pleasure in the world comparable to the delight and satisfaction that a good man takes in doing good.
—John Tillotson
If on one side there are fair proofs, and no pretense of proof on the other, and the difficulties are more pressing on that side which is destitute of proof, I desire to know whether this be not upon the matter as satisfactory to a wise man as a demonstration.
—John Tillotson
When a man has once forfeited the reputation of his integrity, he is set fast; nothing will then serve his turn, neither truth nor falsehood.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Reputation
Malice and hatred are very fretting, and make our own minds sore and uneasy.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Hatred
The short sayings of wise and good men are of great value, like the dust of gold, or the sparks of diamonds.
—John Tillotson
Mere success is one of the worst arguments in the world of a good cause, and the most improper to satisfy conscience: and yet in the issue it is the most successful of all other arguments, and does in a very odd, but effectual, way, satisfy the consciences of a great many men, by showing them their interest.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Success
Sincerity is like traveling on a plain, beaten road, which commonly brings a man sooner to his journey’s end than by-ways, in which men often lose themselves.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Sincerity
The art of using deceit and cunning grow continually weaker and less effective to the user.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Deception/Lying, Deception
There is no readier way for a man to bring his own worth into question, than by endeavoring to detract from the worth of other men.
—John Tillotson