Benjamin Whichcote (1609–83) was a British Establishment and Puritan divine, Provost of King’s College, Cambridge, and leader of the Cambridge Platonists. He was born in Stoke upon Tern in Shropshire. He entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 1628. In 1637, he was ordained, a deacon and priest at the same time. In 1643, he married and took up priestly duties in a Cambridge-dispensed church in North Cadbury, Somerset. In 1644, he became Provost of King’s College due to Parliamentary control of the universities; however, he was the only new head of house who did not subscribe to the National Covenant. In 1650, during the Interregnum, he advised Oliver Cromwell on the subject of toleration of Jews. Upon the Restoration, he was removed from his position at King’s College, but he was reinstated when he accepted the Act of Uniformity in 1662.
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Every man is born with the faculty of reason and the faculty of speech, but why should he be able to speak before he has anything to say?
—Benjamin Whichcote
Topics: Speaking
He that neither knows himself nor thinks he can learn of others is not fit for company.
—Benjamin Whichcote
Topics: Self-Discovery
Joy is the life of man’s life.
—Benjamin Whichcote
Topics: Joy
Modesty and humility are the sobriety of the mind, as temperance and chastity are of the body.
—Benjamin Whichcote
Topics: Modesty
It is impossible for a man to be made happy by putting him in a happy place, unless he be first in a happy state.
—Benjamin Whichcote
Topics: Happiness
It is base and unworthy to live below the dignity of our nature.
—Benjamin Whichcote
Topics: Dignity
Believe things, rather than man.
—Benjamin Whichcote
Topics: Beliefs
Man is a wonder to himself; he can neither govern nor know himself.
—Benjamin Whichcote
Topics: Self-Discovery
None are so empty as those who are full of themselves.
—Benjamin Whichcote
Topics: Selfishness, Humility
Sins of the mind have less infamy than those of the body, but not less malignity.
—Benjamin Whichcote
Topics: Sin
Fear is the denomination of the Old Testament; belief is the denomination of the New.
—Benjamin Whichcote
Topics: Bible
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