Meditation is the life of the soul: Action, the soul of meditation. and honor the reward of action.
—Francis Quarles
Topics: Thinking, Thought, Meditation, Thoughts
If thy words be too luxuriant, confine them, lest they confine thee.—He that thinks he can never speak enough, may easily speak too much.—A full tongue and an empty brain are seldom parted.
—Francis Quarles
Topics: Talking
The average person’s ear weighs what you are, not what you were.
—Francis Quarles
Topics: Reputation
Pleasures bring effeminacy, and effeminacy foreruns ruin; such conquests, without blood or sweat, do sufficiently revenge themselves upon their intemperate conquerors.
—Francis Quarles
Topics: Excess
Beware of drunkenness, lest all good men beware of thee.—Where drunkenness reigns, there reason is an exile, virtue a stranger, and God an enemy; blasphemy is wit, oaths are rhetoric, and secrets are proclamations.
—Francis Quarles
Topics: Drunkenness
If thou desire the love of God and man, be humble, for the proud heart, as it loves none but itself, is beloved of none but itself. Humility enforces where neither virtue, nor strength, nor reason can prevail.
—Francis Quarles
Topics: Humility
Scandal breeds hatred; hatred begets division; division makes faction, and faction brings ruin.
—Francis Quarles
Our God and soldiers we alike adore
Ev’n at the Brink of danger; not before:
After deliverance, both alike required;
Our Gods forgotten, and our soldiers slighted.
—Francis Quarles
If thy daughter marry well, thou hast found a son; if not, thou hast lost a daughter.
—Francis Quarles
Use law and physic only in cases of necessity; they that use them otherwise, abuse themselves into weak bodies and light purses: they are good remedies, bad recreations, but ruinous habits.
—Francis Quarles
Topics: Law
Beware of him that is slow to anger; for when it is long coming, it is the stronger when it comes, and the longer kept. Abused patience turns to fury.
—Francis Quarles
Topics: Anger
When the flesh presents thee with delights, then present thyself with dangers; where the world possesses thee with vain hopes, there possess thyself with true fear; when the devil brings thee oil, bring thou vinegar. The way to be safe is never to be secure.
—Francis Quarles
Topics: Temptation
Rather do what is nothing to the purpose than be idle, that the devil may find thee doing.—The bird that sits is easily shot when the fliers escape the fowler.—Idleness is the Dead Sea that swallows all the virtues, and is the self-made sepulcher of a living man.
—Francis Quarles
Topics: Idleness
In all thine actions think that God sees thee, and in all his actions labor to see him.—That will make thee fear him, and this will move thee to love him.—The fear of God is the beginning of knowledge, and the knowledge of God is the perfection of love.
—Francis Quarles
Topics: God
A fool’s heart is in his tongue; but a wise man’s tongue is in his heart.
—Francis Quarles
Heaven is never deaf but when man’s heart is dumb.
—Francis Quarles
Topics: Prayer
Ignorance as to unrevealed mysteries is the mother of a saving faith; and understanding in revealed truths is the mother of a sacred knowledge.—Understand not therefore that thou mayest believe, but believe that thou mayest understand.—Understanding is the wages of a lively faith, and faith is the reward of an humble ignorance.
—Francis Quarles
Topics: Faith
Let the fear of a danger be a spur to prevent it; he that fears not, gives advantage to the danger.
—Francis Quarles
Topics: Danger
Mercy turns her back to the unmerciful.
—Francis Quarles
Topics: Mercy
Make philosophy thy journey, theology thy journey’s end: philosophy is a pleasant way, but dangerous to him that either tires or retires; in this journey it is safe neither to loiter nor to rest, till thou hast attained thy journey’s end; he that sits down a philosopher rises up an atheist.
—Francis Quarles
Topics: Philosophy
Read not books alone, but men, and amongst them chiefly thyself.—If thou find anything questionable there, use the commentary of a severe friend, rather than the gloss of a sweet-lipped flatterer; there is more profit in a distasteful truth than in deceitful sweetness.
—Francis Quarles
Topics: Reading
Give not thy tongue too great liberty, lest it take thee prisoner. A word unspoken is, like the sword in the scabbard, thine. If vented, thy sword is in another’s hand. If thou desire to be held wise, be so wise as to hold thy tongue.
—Francis Quarles
Topics: Silence
He that takes time to resolve, gives leisure to deny, and warning to prepare.
—Francis Quarles
Topics: Delay
Be very circumspect in the choice of thy company. In the society of thine equals thou shalt enjoy more pleasure; in the society of thy superiors thou shalt find more profit. To be the best in the company is the way to grow worse; the best means to grow better is to be the worst there.
—Francis Quarles
Topics: Associates
The way to subject all things to thyself is to subject thyself to reason. Thou shalt govern many if reason govern thee.—Wouldst thou be the monarch of a little world?—command thyself.
—Francis Quarles
Topics: Reason
Put off thy cares with thy clothes; so shall thy rest strengthen thy labor; and and so shall thy labor sweeten thy rest.
—Francis Quarles
Topics: Rest, Sleep, Leisure
The place of charity, like that of God, is everywhere. Proportion thy charity to the strength of thine estate, lest God proportion thine estate to the weakness of thy charity.—Let the lips of the poor be the trumpet of thy gift, lest in seeking applause, thou lose thy reward.—Nothing is more pleasing to God than an open hand, and a closed mouth.
—Francis Quarles
Topics: Charity
If thou wouldst preserve a sound body, use fasting and walking; if a healthful soul, fasting and praying.—Walking exercises the body; praying exercises the soul; fasting cleanses both.
—Francis Quarles
Topics: Diet
Wouldest thou not be thought a fool in another’s conceit, be not wise in thy own: he that trusts to his own wisdom, proclaims his own folly: he is truly wise, and shall appear so, that hath folly enough to be thought not worldly wise, or wisdom enough to see his own folly.
—Francis Quarles
All passions are good or bad, according to their objects: where the object is absolutely good, there the greatest passion is too little; where absolutely evil, there the least passion is too much; where indifferent, there a little is enough.
—Francis Quarles
Topics: Passion
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
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- Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford English Poet, Courtier
- John Keats English Poet
- Matthew Arnold English Poet, Critic
- Arthur Henry Hallam English Essayist, Poet
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti British Poet, Artist
- Robert South English Theologian
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