Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Owen Feltham (English Essayist)

Owen Feltham was an English writer, author of a book entitled Resolves, Divine, Moral, and Political, containing 146 short essays. It had great popularity in its day. Feltham was for a time in the household of the Earl of Thomond as chaplain or sec., and published, Brief Character of the Low Countries. His most cited essay is “How the Distempers of these Times should affect wise Men” which was selected for inclusion in John Gross’ The Oxford Book of Essays, a compilation of over a hundred of the finest essays in the English language.

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Owen Feltham

Meditation is the soul’s perspective glass, whereby, in her long removes, she discerneth God, as if he were nearer at hand.
Owen Feltham
Topics: Meditation

No man can expect to find a friend without faults, nor can he propose himself to be so to another.—Every man will have something to do for his friend, and something to bear with in him.—Only the sober man can do the first; and for the latter, patience is requisite.—It is better for a man to depend on himself than to be annoyed with either a madman or a fool.
Owen Feltham
Topics: Friendship

He hath a poor spirit who is not planted above petty wrongs.
Owen Feltham
Topics: Spirit

Riches, though they may reward virtue, cannot cause it.—He is much more noble who deserves a benefit than he who bestows one.
Owen Feltham
Topics: Riches

We make ourselves more injuries than are offered to us; they many times pass for wrongs in our own thoughts, that were never meant so by the heart of him that speaketh. The apprehension of wrong hurts more than the sharpest part of the wrong done.
Owen Feltham

Prayer should be the key of the day and the lock of the night.
Owen Feltham
Topics: Prayer

Irresolution is a worse vice than rashness. He that shoots best may sometimes miss the mark; but he that shoots not at all can never hit it. Irresolution loosens all the joints of a state; like an ague, it shakes not this nor that limb, but all the body is at once in a fit. The irresolute man is lifted from one place to another; so hatcheth nothing, but addles all his actions.
Owen Feltham

In some dispositions there is such an envious kind of pride that they cannot endure that any but themselves should be set forth for excellent; so that when they hear one justly praised, they will either seek to dismount his virtues, or, if they be like a clear light, they will stab him with a “but” of detraction.
Owen Feltham

There is no belittling worse than to over praise a man.
Owen Feltham
Topics: Praise

Gold is the fool’s curtain, which hides all his defects from the world.
Owen Feltham
Topics: Gold, Money

This wonder we find in hope, that she is both a flatterer and a true friend.—How many would die did not hope sustain them; how many have died by hoping too much!
Owen Feltham
Topics: Hope

He who would be singular in his apparel had need have something superlative to balance that affectation.
Owen Feltham

All earthly delights are sweeter in expectation than enjoyment; but all spiritual pleasures more in fruition than expectation.
Owen Feltham
Topics: Anticipation, Spirituality, Spirit, Expectation, Pleasure, Enjoyment

A talkative fellow may be compared to an unbraced drum, which beats a wise man out of his wits.—Loquacity is ever running, and almost incurable.
Owen Feltham

It is not fit that every man should travel; it makes a wise man better, and a fool worse.
Owen Feltham
Topics: Travel, Tourism

He who always waits upon God, is ready whensoever he calls.—He is a happy man who so lives that death at all times may find him at leisure to die.
Owen Feltham
Topics: Death

Zeal without humanity is like a ship without a rudder, liable to be stranded at any moment.
Owen Feltham
Topics: Enthusiasm, Humanity, Zeal

God has made no one absolute. The rich depend on the poor, as well as the poor on the rich. The world is but a magnificent building; all the stones are gradually cemented together. No one subsists by himself.
Owen Feltham
Topics: World, Independence

The true boundary of man is moderation.—When once we pass that pale, our guardian angel quits his charge of us.
Owen Feltham
Topics: Moderation

We do not wisely when we vent complaint and censure.—We cry out for a little pain, when we do but smile for a great deal of contentment.
Owen Feltham
Topics: Complaining

The greatest results in life are usually attained by simple means and the exercise of ordinary qualities. These may for the most part be summed up in these two—common sense and perseverance.
Owen Feltham
Topics: Success, Life, Perseverance

Some are so uncharitable as to think all women bad, and others are so credulous as to believe they are all good. All will grant her corporeal frame more wonderful and more beautiful than man’s. And can we think God would put a worse soul into her better body?
Owen Feltham
Topics: Woman

Every man should study conciseness in speaking; it is a sign of ignorance not to know that long speeches, though they may please the speaker, are the torture of the hearer.
Owen Feltham

Show me the man who would go to heaven alone, and I will show you one who will never be admitted there.
Owen Feltham
Topics: Selfishness

Discontents are sometimes the better part of our life.—I know not which is the most useful.—Joy I may choose for pleasure; but adversities are the best for profit; and sometimes these do so far help me, that I should, without them, want much of the joy I have.
Owen Feltham
Topics: Discontent

Laughter should dimple the cheek, not furrow the brow. A jest should be such that all shall be able to join in the laugh which it occasions; but if it bears hard upon one of the company, like the crack of a string, it makes a stop in the music.
Owen Feltham

A consciousness of inward knowledge gives confidence to the outward behavior, which, of all things, is the best to grace a man in his carriage.
Owen Feltham
Topics: Behavior

The married man is like the bee that fixes his hive, augments the world, benefits the republic, and by a daily diligence, without wronging any, profits all; but he who contemns wedlock, like a wasp, wanders an offence to the world, lives upon spoil and rapine, disturbs peace, steals sweets that are none of his own, and, by robbing the hives of others, meets misery as his due reward.
Owen Feltham
Topics: Marriage

A sentence well couched takes both the sense and the understanding.—I love not those cart-rope speeches that are longer than the memory of man can measure.
Owen Feltham
Topics: Style, Speech

Men are like wine; not good before the lees of clownishness be settled.
Owen Feltham
Topics: Manners

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