Every man will have his own criterion in forming his judgment of others. I depend very much on the effect of affliction. I consider how a man comes out of the furnace; gold will lie for a month in the furnace without losing a grain.
—Richard Cecil
Topics: Trials
Hypocrisy is folly.—It is much easier, safer, and pleasanter to be the thing which a man aims to appear, than to keep up the appearance of what he is not.
—Richard Cecil
Topics: Hypocrisy
The world looks at preachers out of church to know what they mean in it.
—Richard Cecil
Topics: Preaching, Evangelism
The way of every man is declarative of the end of every man.
—Richard Cecil
Topics: Man
Method is like packing things in a box; a good packer will get in half as much again as a bad one.
—Richard Cecil
The first step to knowledge is to know that we are ignorant.
—Richard Cecil
Topics: Knowledge, Ignorance
Appointments once made, become debts. If I have made an appointment with you, I owe you punctuality; I have no right to throw away your time, if I do my own.
—Richard Cecil
Topics: Punctuality
A man who puts aside his religion because he is going into society, is like one taking off his shoes because he is about to walk upon thorns.
—Richard Cecil
Topics: Religion
Eloquence is vehement simplicity.
—Richard Cecil
Topics: Eloquence
To persevere in one’s duty and be silent, is the best answer to calumny.
—Richard Cecil
Topics: Perseverance
If there is any person to whom you feel dislike, that is the person of whom you ought never to speak.
—Richard Cecil
Duties are ours, events are God’s. This removes an infinite burden from the shoulders of a miserable, tempted, dying creature. On this consideration only can he securely lay down his head and close his eyes.
—Richard Cecil
Topics: Duty
Nothing can be proposed so wild or so absurd as not to find a party, and often a very large party to espouse it.
—Richard Cecil
Topics: Party
He has seen but little of life who does not discern everywhere the effect of early education on men’s opinions and habits of thinking. Children bring out of the nursery that which displays itself throughout their lives.
—Richard Cecil
Topics: Education
As a man loves gold, in that proportion he hates to be imposed upon by counterfeits; and in proportion as a man has regard for that which is above price and better than gold, he abhors that hypocrisy which is but its counterfeit.
—Richard Cecil
Topics: Hypocrisy
Solitude shows us what we should be; society shows us what we are.
—Richard Cecil
Topics: Solitude
Self-will is so ardent and active, that it will break a world to pieces, to make a stool to sit on.
—Richard Cecil
Topics: Will, Willpower, Will Power
Every man is an original and solitary character.—None can either understand or feel the book of his own life like himself.
—Richard Cecil
Topics: Originality
God’s way of answering the Christian’s prayer for more patience, experience, hope, and love, often is to put him into the furnace of affliction.
—Richard Cecil
Topics: Prayer
I extend the circle of religion very widely.—Many men fear and love God, and have a sincere desire to serve him, whose views of religious truth are very imperfect, and in some points utterly false.—But may not many such persons have a state of heart acceptable before God?
—Richard Cecil
Topics: Religion
The religion of a sinner stands on two pillars; namely, what Christ did for us in the flesh, and what he performs in us by his Spirit. Most errors arise from an attempt to separate these two.
—Richard Cecil
Topics: Religion
Wisdom prepares for the worst, but folly leaves the worst for the day when it comes.
—Richard Cecil
Topics: Wisdom
The very heart and root of sin is an independent spirit.—We erect the idol self, and not only wish others to worship, but worship it ourselves.
—Richard Cecil
Topics: Selfishness
The nurse of infidelity is sensuality.
—Richard Cecil
The Christian will find his parentheses for prayer even in the busiest hours of life.
—Richard Cecil
Topics: Prayer
Supreme and abiding self-love is a very dwarfish affection, but a giant evil.
—Richard Cecil
Topics: Selfishness
Metaphysicians can unsettle things, but they can erect nothing. They can pull down a church, but they cannot build a hovel.
—Richard Cecil
A contemplative life has more the appearance of piety than any other; but the divine plan is to bring faith into activity and exercise.
—Richard Cecil
The union of Christians to Christ, their common head, and by means of the influence they derive from him, one to another, may be illustrated by the loadstone. It not only attracts the particles of iron to itself by the magnetic virtue, but by this virtue it unites them one to another.
—Richard Cecil
There are but two classes of the wise; the men who serve God because they have found him, and the men who seek him because they have found him not. All others may say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?”
—Richard Cecil
Topics: Wisdom
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