When all is done, human life is, at the greatest and the best, but like a froward child, that must be played with and humored a little to keep it quiet till it falls asleep, and then the care is over.
—William Temple
Topics: Humanity, Humankind
I have always looked upon alchemy in natural philosophy, to be like over enthusiasm in divinity, and to have troubled the world much to the same purpose.
—William Temple
A man that only translates, shall never be a poet: nor a painter, that only copies; nor a swimmer, that swims always with bladders; so people that trust wholly to others’ charity, and without industry of their own, will always be poor.
—William Temple
Topics: Self-reliance, Charity
Learning passes for wisdom among those who want both.
—William Temple
Topics: Learning
The best rules to form a young man are, to talk little, to hear much, to reflect alone upon what has passed in company, to distrust one’s own opinions, and value others’ that deserve it.
—William Temple
The only way for a rich man to be healthy is by exercise and abstinence, to live as if he was poor; which are esteemed the worst parts of poverty.
—William Temple
Topics: Exercise, Health
I have long thought, that the different abilities of men, which we call wisdom or prudence for the conduct of public affairs or private life, grow directly out of that little grain of good sense which they bring with them into the world; and that the defect of it in men comes from some want in their conception or birth.
—William Temple
Our present time is indeed a criticizing and critical time, hovering between the wish, and the inability to believe. Our complaints are like arrows shot up into the air at no target: and with no purpose they only fall back upon our own heads and destroy ourselves.
—William Temple
Topics: Complaining, Complaints, Pessimism
Books and proverbs receive their chief value from the stamp and esteem of ages through which they have passed.
—William Temple
Topics: Books, Proverbs, Reading
Leisure and solitude are the best effect of riches, because mother of thought. Both are avoided by most rich men, who seek company and business; which are signs of their being weary of themselves.
—William Temple
Topics: Leisure, Wealth, Solitude
The abilities of man must fall short on one side or the other, like too scanty a blanket when you are abed. If you pull it upon your shoulders, your feet are left bare; if you thrust it down to your feet, your shoulders are uncovered.
—William Temple
Topics: Ability
Who can tell whether learning may not even weaken invention in man that has great advantages from nature and birth; whether the weight and number of so many men’s thoughts and notions may not suppress his own or hinder the motion and agitation of them, from which all invention arises; as heaping on wood, or too many sticks, or too close together, suppresses, and sometimes quite extinguishes a little spark, that would otherwise have grown up to a noble flame.
—William Temple
Topics: Learning
Oddities and singularities of behavior may attend genius, but when they do, they are its misfortunes and blemishes.—The man of true genius will be ashamed of them, or, at least, will never affect to be distinguished by them.
—William Temple
Topics: Behavior
In conversation, humor is more than wit, and easiness more than knowledge. Few desire to learn, or think they need it.—All desire to be pleased, or at least to be easy.
—William Temple
Topics: Conversation, Wit
When I pray, coincidences happen, and when I don’t, they don’t.
—William Temple
Topics: Prayer
We shall say without hesitation that the atheist who is moved by love is moved by the Spirit of God; an atheist who lives by love is saved by his faith in the God whose existence (under that name) he denies.
—William Temple
Topics: Atheism
Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed.
—William Temple
Topics: Life and Living
Sleep is so like death, says Sir Thomas Browne, “that I dare not trust myself to it without prayer.” They both, when they seize the body, leave the soul at liberty; and wise is he that remembers of both, that they can be made safe and happy only by virtue.
—William Temple
Topics: Sleep
Temperance, that virtue without pride, and fortune without envy, that gives vigor of frame and tranquility of mind; the best guardian of youth and support of old age, the precept of reason as well as religion, the physician of the soul as well as the body, the tutelar goddess of health, and universal medicine of life.
—William Temple
Valor gives awe, and promises protection to those who want heart or strength to defend themselves. This makes the authority of men among women, and that of a master buck in a numerous herd.
—William Temple
Topics: Valor
No one ever was a great poet, that applied himself much to anything else.
—William Temple
Topics: Poetry, Poets
It is a very poor, though common pretence to merit, to make it appear by the faults of other men; a mean wit or beauty may pass in a room where the rest of the company are allowed to have none; it is something to sparkle among diamonds; but to shine among pebbles is neither credit nor value worth the pretending.
—William Temple
To be a parent without an assistant is hard work.
—William Temple
Topics: Family
By luxury we condemn ourselves to greater torments than have yet been invented by anger or revenge, or inflicted by the greatest tyrants upon the orst of men.
—William Temple
Topics: Luxury
Authority is by nothing so much strengthened and confirmed as by custom; for no man easily distrusts the things which he and all men have been always bred up to.
—William Temple
Topics: Authority
Submission is the only reasoning between a creature and its maker and contentment in his will is the best remedy we can apply to misfortunes.
—William Temple
Topics: Contentment
All courageous animals are carnivorous, and greater courage is to be expected in a people whose food is strong and hearty, than in the half-starved of other countries.
—William Temple
Topics: Diet
No possessions are good, but by the good use we make of them; without which wealth, power, friends, and servants, do but help to make our lives more unhappy.
—William Temple
Topics: Possessions
God has given us these opportunities for tranquility.
—William Temple
Topics: Opportunity
A man’s wisdom is his best friend; folly his worst enemy.
—William Temple
Topics: Wisdom
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- James Baldwin American Novelist, Social Critic
- Samuel Butler
- Paul Goodman American Novelist, Essayist
- Silas Weir Mitchell American Physician, Writer
- Henry Eyring American Chemist
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