There is no sensual pleasure in the world comparable to the delight and satisfaction that a good man takes in doing good.
—John Tillotson
They who are in the highest places, and have the most power, have the least liberty, because they are the most observed.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Liberty
Though all afflictions are evils in themselves, yet they are good for us, because they discover to us our disease and tend to our cure.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Suffering
Ignorance and inconsideration are the two great causes of the ruin of mankind.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Ignorance
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
Abstinence is many times very helpful to the end of religion.
—John Tillotson
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
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
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.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Eating, Inaction, Carpe-diem, Drinking, Procrastination, Getting Going, Indecision
The crafty person is always in danger; and when they think they walk in the dark, all their pretenses are transparent.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Deception, Deception/Lying
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
There is no man that is to himself knowingly guilty and that carries guilt about him, but receives a sting into his soul.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Remorse
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
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
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
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
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.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Forgiveness
Is not he imprudent, who, seeing the tide making toward him apace, will sleep till the sea overwhelms him?
—John Tillotson
Topics: Procrastination
The art of using deceit and cunning grow continually weaker and less effective to the user.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Deception, Deception/Lying
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 another.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Hypocrisy
There are two things in which men, in other things wise enough, do usually miscarry; in putting off the making of their wills and their repentance till it be too late.
—John Tillotson
In all the affairs of this world, so much reputation is, in reality, so much power.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Reputation
Was ever any wicked man free from the stings of a guilty conscience—from a secret dread of the divine displeasure, and of the vengeance of another world?
—John Tillotson
Topics: Wickedness
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
The covetous man heaps up riches, not to enjoy, but to have them; he starves himself in the midst of plenty; 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.
—John Tillotson
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
The idle, who are neither wise for this world nor the next, are emphatically fools.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Idleness
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: Truth, Lying
Zeal is fit for wise men, but flourishes chiefly among fools.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Zeal, Enthusiasm
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
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