Thomas Fuller (1608–61) was an English scholar, preacher, and one of the most humorous and prolific authors of the 17th century.
Born in Aldwinkle St Peter’s, Northamptonshire, Fuller studied at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and became prebendary of Salisbury in 1631 and rector of Broadwindsor, Dorset, in 1634.
Fuller’s witty and popular style won him an excellent reputation. Of his historical writings, the most famous are his Church-History of Britain (1655) and his Worthies of England (posthumous, 1662.) He worked on both of these for a significant part of his life, collecting some of his material during his campaigns with the royalist forces in the Civil War.
Fuller’s most famous work is The Holy State and the Profane State (1642,) an engaging collection of character sketches illuminating the Christian moral ideal. He also wrote a History of the Holy War (1639) on the Crusades, besides other works.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Thomas Fuller
Zeal without knowledge is fire without light.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Zeal, Enthusiasm, Knowledge
Memory is the treasure-house of the mind wherein the monuments thereof are kept and preserved.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Memory
The pleasures of the rich are bought with the tears of the poor.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Riches
The good wife is none of our dainty dames, who love to appear in a variety of suits every day new; as if a gown, like a stratagem in war, were to be used but once. But our good wife sets up a sail according to the keel of her husband’s estate; and, if of high parentage, she doth not so remember what she was by birth, that she forgets what she is by match.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Wife
He lives long that lives well; and time misspent is not lived, but lost. God is better than his promise if he takes from him a long lease, and gives him a free hold of a better value.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Time Management, Time, Life
It is the glory of the true religion that it inculcates and inspires a spirit of benevolence.—It is a religion of charity, which none other ever was.—Christ went about doing good; he set the example to his disciples, and they abounded in it.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Benevolence, Example
Don’t let your will roar when your power only whispers.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Willpower, Will Power, Will
Let him who expects one class of society to prosper in the highest degree, while the other is in distress, try whether one side of his face can smile while the other is pinched.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Class, Society
Take heed of jesting; many have been ruined by it.—It is hard to jest, and not sometimes jeer too, which often sinks deeper than we intended or expected.
—Thomas Fuller
A hypocrite is in himself both the archer and the mark, in all actions shooting at his own praise or profit.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Hypocrisy
There is no banquet but some dislike something in it.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Blessings, Gratitude, Appreciation
It was said of one who preached very well, and lived very ill, “that when he was out of the pulpit it was pity he should ever go into it; and when he was in the pulpit, it was pity he should ever come out of it.”
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Preaching
The patient is not likely to recover who makes the doctor his heir.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Inheritance
Memory is like a purse, if it be over-full that it cannot shut, all will drop out of it. Take heed of a gluttonous curiosity to feed on many things, lest the greediness of the appetite of thy memory spoil the digestion thereof.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Memory
No man who is fit to live need fear to die. To us here, death is the most terrible thing we know. But when we have tasted its reality it will mean to us birth, deliverance, a new creation of ourselves. It will be what health is to the sick man; what home is to the exile; what the loved one given back is to the bereaved. As we draw near to it a solemn gladness should fill our hearts. It is God’s great morning lighting up the sky. Our fears are the terror of children in the night. The night with its terrors, its darkness, its feverish dreams, is passing away; and when we awake it will be into the sunlight of God.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Death
First get an absolute conquest over thyself, and then thou wilt easily govern thy wife.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Wife
If you have one true friend you have more than your share.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Friendship
Get the facts, or the facts will get you. And when you get them, get them right, or they will get you wrong.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Facts
If thou wouldst please the ladies, thou must endeavor to make them pleased with themselves.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Woman
He who cures a disease may be the skillfullest, but he that prevents it is the safest physician.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Health, Disease, Advice
Hard, rugged, and dull natures of youth acquit themselves afterward the jewels of the country, and therefore their dulness at first is to be borne with, if they be diligent. That school master deserves to be beaten himself who beats nature in a boy for a fault. And I question whether all the whipping in the world can make their parts, which are naturally sluggish, rise one minute before the hour nature hath appointed.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Mind, Education
When there is no recreation or business for thee abroad, thou mayst then have a company of honest old fellows, in leathern jackets, in thy study, which may find thee excellent divertisement at home.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Reading
It is best to live as friends with those in time with whom we would be to all eternity.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Friendship
The affections, like conscience, are rather to be led than driven.—Those who many where they do not love, will be likely to love where they do not marry.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Affection, Love
A coward’s fear can make a coward valiant.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Courage, Fear, Anxiety
Better break your word than do worse in keeping it.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Promises
Be a friend to thyself and others will too.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Friendship
Bad excuses are worse than none.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Excuses
Rigid justice is the greatest injustice.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Justice
There is a scarcity of friendship, but not of friends.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Friendship
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