Sleep is so like death, says Sir Thomas Browne, “that I dare not trust myself to it without prayer.” They both, when they seize the body, leave the soul at liberty; and wise is he that remembers of both, that they can be made safe and happy only by virtue.
—William Temple
Topics: Sleep
Who can tell whether learning may not even weaken invention in man that has great advantages from nature and birth; whether the weight and number of so many men’s thoughts and notions may not suppress his own or hinder the motion and agitation of them, from which all invention arises; as heaping on wood, or too many sticks, or too close together, suppresses, and sometimes quite extinguishes a little spark, that would otherwise have grown up to a noble flame.
—William Temple
Topics: Learning
All courageous animals are carnivorous, and greater courage is to be expected in a people whose food is strong and hearty, than in the half-starved of other countries.
—William Temple
Topics: Diet
It is a great blessing to possess what one wishes, said one to an ancient philosopher.—It is a greater still, was the reply, not to desire what one does not possess.
—William Temple
Topics: Contentment
All the precepts of Christianity agree to teach and command us to moderate our passions, to temper our affections toward all things below; to be thankful for the possession, and patient under the loss whenever he that gave shall see fit to take away.
—William Temple
Temperance, that virtue without pride, and fortune without envy, that gives vigor of frame and tranquility of mind; the best guardian of youth and support of old age, the precept of reason as well as religion, the physician of the soul as well as the body, the tutelar goddess of health, and universal medicine of life.
—William Temple
It is a very poor, though common pretence to merit, to make it appear by the faults of other men; a mean wit or beauty may pass in a room where the rest of the company are allowed to have none; it is something to sparkle among diamonds; but to shine among pebbles is neither credit nor value worth the pretending.
—William Temple
The only way for a rich man to be healthy is by exercise and abstinence, to live as if he was poor; which are esteemed the worst parts of poverty.
—William Temple
Topics: Health, Exercise
Who ever converses among old books will be hard to please among the new.
—William Temple
Topics: Books, Reading
No one ever was a great poet, that applied himself much to anything else.
—William Temple
Topics: Poetry, Poets
Oddities and singularities of behavior may attend genius, but when they do, they are its misfortunes and blemishes.—The man of true genius will be ashamed of them, or, at least, will never affect to be distinguished by them.
—William Temple
Topics: Behavior
Valor gives awe, and promises protection to those who want heart or strength to defend themselves. This makes the authority of men among women, and that of a master buck in a numerous herd.
—William Temple
Topics: Valor
Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed.
—William Temple
Topics: Life and Living
Some of the fathers went so far as to esteem the love of music a sign of predestination, as a thing divine, and reserved for the felicities of heaven itself.
—William Temple
Topics: Music
God has given us these opportunities for tranquility.
—William Temple
Topics: Opportunity
In conversation, humor is more than wit, and easiness more than knowledge. Few desire to learn, or think they need it.—All desire to be pleased, or at least to be easy.
—William Temple
Topics: Wit, Conversation
Our present time is indeed a criticizing and critical time, hovering between the wish, and the inability to believe. Our complaints are like arrows shot up into the air at no target: and with no purpose they only fall back upon our own heads and destroy ourselves.
—William Temple
Topics: Complaints, Complaining, Pessimism
The abilities of man must fall short on one side or the other, like too scanty a blanket when you are abed. If you pull it upon your shoulders, your feet are left bare; if you thrust it down to your feet, your shoulders are uncovered.
—William Temple
Topics: Ability
No possessions are good, but by the good use we make of them; without which wealth, power, friends, and servants, do but help to make our lives more unhappy.
—William Temple
Topics: Possessions
The problem of evil… Why does God permit it? Or, if God is omnipotent, in which case permission and creation are the same, why did God create it?
—William Temple
Topics: Evil
Oh, temperance, thou fortune without envy; thou universal medicine of life, that clears the head and cleanses the blood, eases the stomach, strengthens the nerves, and perfects digestion.
—William Temple
To be a parent without an assistant is hard work.
—William Temple
Topics: Family
By luxury we condemn ourselves to greater torments than have yet been invented by anger or revenge, or inflicted by the greatest tyrants upon the orst of men.
—William Temple
Topics: Luxury
Health is the soul that animates all the enjoyments of life, which fade and are tasteless without it.
—William Temple
Topics: Health
When all is done, human life is, at the greatest and the best, but like a froward child, that must be played with and humored a little to keep it quiet till it falls asleep, and then the care is over.
—William Temple
Topics: Humanity, Humankind
I have long thought, that the different abilities of men, which we call wisdom or prudence for the conduct of public affairs or private life, grow directly out of that little grain of good sense which they bring with them into the world; and that the defect of it in men comes from some want in their conception or birth.
—William Temple
We shall say without hesitation that the atheist who is moved by love is moved by the Spirit of God; an atheist who lives by love is saved by his faith in the God whose existence (under that name) he denies.
—William Temple
Topics: Atheism
If your prayer is selfish, the answer will be something that will rebuke your selfishness. You may not recognize it as having come at all, but it is sure to be there.
—William Temple
Topics: Prayer, Selfishness
Leisure and solitude are the best effect of riches, because mother of thought. Both are avoided by most rich men, who seek company and business; which are signs of their being weary of themselves.
—William Temple
Topics: Solitude, Wealth, Leisure
When I pray, coincidences happen, and when I don’t, they don’t.
—William Temple
Topics: Prayer
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- James Baldwin American Novelist, Social Critic
- Samuel Butler British Author
- Paul Goodman American Novelist, Essayist
- Silas Weir Mitchell American Physician, Writer
- Henry Eyring American Chemist
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