Owen Feltham Quotes

Vice is a peripatetic, always in progression.

Discontents are sometimes the better part of our life. I know not well which is the most useful; joy I may choose for pleasure, but adversities are the best for profit; and sometimes those do so far help me, as I should, without them, want much of the joy I have.

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.

It is much safer to reconcile an enemy than to conquer him; victory may deprive him of his poison, but reconciliation of his will.

How many would die did not hope sustain them.

Perfection is immutable. But for things imperfect change is the way to perfect them. It gets the name of wilfulness when it will not admit of a lawful change to the better. Therefore constancy without knowledge cannot be always good. In things ill it is not virtue, but an absolute vice.

It is to be doubted whether he will ever find the way to heaven who desires to go thither alone.

For converse among men, beautiful persons have less need of the mind's commending qualities. Beauty in itself is such a silent orator, that it is ever pleading for respect and liking, and by the eyes of others is ever sending, to their hearts for love.

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.

Men are like wine,--not good before the lees of clownishness be settled.

There is no man but for his own interest hath an obligation to be honest. There may be sometimes temptations to be otherwise; but, all cards cast up, he shall find it the greatest ease, the highest profit, the best pleasure, the most safety, and the noblest fame, to hold the horns of this altar, which, in all assays, can in himself protect him.

Gold is the fool's curtain, which hides all his defects from the world.

It is rare to see a rich man religious; for religion preaches restraint, and riches prompt to unlicensed freedom.

Pleasures can undo a man at any time, if yielded to.

There is no detraction worse than to overpraise a man, for if his worth proves short of what report doth speak of him, his own actions are ever giving the lie to his honor.

He that, when he should not, spends too much, shall, when he would not, have too little to spend.

Honesty is a warrant of far more safety than fame.

Riches, though they may reward virtues, yet they cannot cause them; he is much more noble who deserves a benefit than he who bestows one.

Reason and right give the quickest despatch.

That man is but of the lower part of the world that is not brought up to business and affairs.

There is no one subsists by himself alone.

Fear, if it be not immoderate, puts a guard about us that does watch and defend us; but credulity keeps us naked, and lays us open to all the sly assaults of ill-intending men: it was a virtue when man was in his innocence; but since his fall, it abuses those that own it.

Contemplation is necessary to generate an object, but action must propagate it.

Any man shall speak the better when he knows what others have said, and sometimes the consciousness of his inward knowledge gives a confidence to his outward behavior, which of all other is the best thing to grace a man in his carriage.

A sentence well couched takes both the sense and understanding. I love not those cart-rope speeches that are longer than the memory of man can fathom.

It is a most unhappy state to be at a distance with God: man needs no greater infelicity than to be left to himself.

Virtue were a kind of misery if fame were all the garland that crowned her.

In business, three things are necessary: knowledge, temper, and time.

To be gentle is the test of a lady.

Surely, if we considered detraction to be bred of envy, nested only in deficient minds, we should find that the applauding of virtue would win us far more honor than the seeking slyly to disparage it. That would show we loved what we commended, while this tells the world we grudge at what we want in ourselves.

Meditation is the soul's perspective glass.

The irresolute man flecks from one egg to another, so hatches nothing.

Human life has not a surer friend, nor oftentimes a greater enemy, than hope. It is the miserable man's god, which in the hardest gripe of calamity never fails to yield to him beams of comfort. It is the presumptuous man's devil, which leads him a while in a smooth way, and then suddenly breaks his neck.

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

I love the man that is modestly valiant; that stirs not till he most needs, and then to purpose. A continued patience I commend not.

Knowledge is the treasure of the mind, but discretion is the key to it, without which it is useless. The practical part of wisdom is the best.

We pick our own sorrows out of the joys of other men, and from their sorrows likewise we derive our joys.

Works without faith are like a fish without water, it wants the element it should live in. A building without a basis cannot stand; faith is the foundation, and every good action is as a stone laid.

To trust God when we have securities in our iron chest is easy, but not thankworthy; but to depend on him for what we cannot see, as it is more hard for man to do, so it is more acceptable to God.

There is no belittling worse than to over praise a man.

Virtue is the truest liberty.

The noblest part of a friend is an honest boldness in the notifying of errors. He that tells me of a fault, aiming at my good, I must think him wise and faithful--wise in spying that which I see not; faithful in a plain admonishment, not tainted with flattery.

If ever I should affect injustice, it would be in this, that I might do courtesies and receive none.

When two friends part they should lock up one another's secrets, and interchange their keys.

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 a better body?

Hope is to a man as a bladder to a learning swimmer--it keeps him from sinking in the bosom of the waves, and by that help he may attain the exercise; but yet it many times makes him venture beyond his height, and then if that breaks, or a storm rises, he drowns without recovery. How many would die, did not hope sustain them! How many have died by hoping too much! This wonder we find in Hope, that she is both a flatterer and a true friend.

God has made no one absolute.

Time is like a ship which never anchors; while I am on board, I had better do those things that may profit me at my landing, than practice such as shall cause my commitment when I come ashore.