The idle, who are neither wise for this world nor the next, are emphatically fools.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Idleness
Profit or pleasure there is none in swearing, nor anything in men’s natural tempers to incite them to it. For though some men pour out oaths so freely, as if they came naturally from them, yet surely no man is born of a swearing constitution.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Profanity
There is no fool equal to the sinner, who every moment ventures his soul.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Sin
A good word is an easy obligation; but not to speak ill requires only our silence, which costs us nothing.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Obligation, Words, Silence
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
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
Abstinence is many times very helpful to the end of religion.
—John Tillotson
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/Lying, Deception
Malice and hatred are very fretting, and make our own minds sore and uneasy.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Hatred
He that does not know those things which are of use and necessity for him to know, is but an ignorant man, whatever he may know besides.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Ignorance
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 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
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
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
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
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
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
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 art of using deceit and cunning grow continually weaker and less effective to the user.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Deception, Deception/Lying
There is no sensual pleasure in the world comparable to the delight and satisfaction that a good man takes in doing good.
—John Tillotson
When we have practised good actions awhile, they become easy; when they are easy, we take pleasure in them; when they please us, we do them frequently; and then, by frequency of act, they grow into a habit.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Habit
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
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
Ignorance and inconsideration are the two great causes of the ruin of mankind.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Ignorance
Shame is a great restraint upon sinners at first; but that soon falls off: and when men have once lost their innocence, their modesty is not like to be long troublesome to them. For impudence comes on with vice, and grows up with it. Lesser vices do not banish all shame and modesty; but great and abominable crimes harden men’s foreheads, and make them shameless. When men have the heart to do a very bad thing, they seldom want the face to bear it out.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Shame
To be able to bear provocation is an argument of great reason, and to forgive it of a great mind.
—John Tillotson
Topics: Forgiveness
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
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
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
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