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
If you command wisely, you’ll be obeyed cheerfully.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Leadership, Wisdom
An ounce of cheerfulness is worth a pound of sadness to serve God with.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Contentment, Cheerfulness
Make not thy friends too cheap to thee, nor thyself to thy friend.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Familiarity, Friendship
Vows are made in storms and forgotten in calm weather.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Promises
Gravity is the ballast of the soul, which keeps the mind steady.
—Thomas Fuller
Thou ought to be nice, even to superstition, in keeping thy promises, and therefore equally cautious in making them.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Promises, Promise
If you would have a good wife, marry one who has been a good daughter.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Marriage
Willful waste brings woeful want.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Excess, Waste
Make no vows to perform this or that; it shows no great strength, and makes thee ride behind thyself.
—Thomas Fuller
When the flatterer pipes, then the devil dances.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Flattery
Be not too familiar with thy servants; at first it may beget love, but in the end ’twill breed contempt.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Familiarity, Servants
Knowledge is a treasure, but practice is the key to it.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Knowledge
If thou art a master, be sometimes blind; if a servant, sometimes deaf.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Master, Kindness
God makes, and apparel shapes: but ’tis money that finishes the man.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Money
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, Life, Time
Zeal without knowledge is fire without light.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Zeal, Enthusiasm, Knowledge
We would be cowards, if we had courage enough.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Courage
All doors open to courtesy.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Manners, Courtesy
The real difference between men is energy. A strong will, a settled purpose, an invincible determination, can accomplish almost anything; and in this lies the distinction between great men and little men.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Enthusiasm, Men, Success, Passion
Pride perceiving humility honorable, often borrows her cloak.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Pride
Nothing sharpens sight like envy.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Envy
Deceive not thyself by over-expecting happiness in the married state.—Look not therein for contentment greater than God will give, or a creature in this world can receive, namely, to be free from all inconveniences.—Marriage is not like the hill of Olympus, wholly clear, without clouds.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Marriage
Poor men’s reasons are not heard.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Poverty
Memory is the treasure-house of the mind wherein the monuments thereof are kept and preserved.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Memory
Dwell not too long upon sports; for as they refresh a man that is weary, so they weary a man that is refreshed.
—Thomas Fuller
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
Cheat me in the price, but not in the goods.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Cheating, Deception/Lying, Deception
Ingratitude is the abridgment of all baseness; a fault never found unattended with other viciousness.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Ingratitude
Business is the salt of life.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Business
Better a tooth out than always aching.
—Thomas Fuller
Topics: Divorce
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