Jeremy Taylor Quotes
He that loves not his wife and children feeds a lioness at home, and broods a nest of sorrows.
God hath given to man a short time here upon earth, and yet upon this short time eternity depends.
Revenge... is like a rolling stone, which, when a man hath forced up a hill, will return upon him with a greater violence, and break those bones whose sinews gave it motion.
All virtuous women, like tortoises, carry their house on their heads, and their chappel in their heart, and their danger in their eye, and their souls in their hands, and God in all their actions.
A celibate, like the fly in the heart of an apple, dwells in a perpetual sweetness, but sits alone, and is confined and dies in singularity.
It is impossible to make people understand their ignorance, for it requires knowledge to perceive it; and, therefore, he that can perceive it hath it not.
God is pleased with no music below so much as with the thanksgiving songs of relieved widows and supported orphans; of rejoicing, comforted, and thankful persons.
A wise man shall overrule his stars, and have a greater influence upon his own content than all the constellations and planets of the firmament.
Mercy is like the rainbow, which God hath set in the clouds; it never shines after it is night. If we refuse mercy here, we shall have justice in eternity.
since God has appointed one remedy for all the evils in the world and that is a contented spirit.
Mistake not. Those pleasures are not pleasures that trouble the quiet and tranquillity of thy life.
Enjoy the blessings of this day, if God sends them; and the evils of it bear patiently and sweetly: for this day only is ours, we are dead to yesterday, and we are not yet born to the morrow.
Nothing is greater or more fearful sacrilege than to prostitute the great name of God to the petulancy of an idle tongue.
Certain it is, that as nothing can better do it; so there is nothing greater, for which God made our tongues, next to reciting His praises, than to minister comfort to a weary soul.
From David learn to give thanks for everything. Every furrow in the book of Psalms is sown with the seeds of thanksgiving.
The body of our prayer is the sum of our duty; and as we must ask of God whatsoever we need, so we must watch and labor for all that we ask.
Impatience turns an ague into a fever, a fever to the plague, fear into despair, anger into rage, loss into madness, and sorrow to amazement.
Whoever is a hypocrite in his religion mocks God, presenting to Him the outside and reserving the inward for his enemy.
Friendship is the allay of our sorrows, the ease of our passions, the discharge of our oppressions, the sanctuary to our calamities, the counselor of our doubts, the clarity of our minds.
To be perpetually longing and impatiently desirous of anything, so that a man cannot abstain from it, is to lose a man's liberty, and to become a servant of meat and drink, or smoke.
If anger proceeds from a great cause, it turns to fury; if from a small cause, it is peevishness; and so is always either terrible or ridiculous.
Humility is like a tree, whose root when it sets deepest in the earth rises higher, and spreads fairer and stands surer, and lasts longer, and every step of its descent is like a rib of iron.
Some friendships are made by nature, some by contract, some by interest, and some by souls.
He that is choice of his time will be choice of his company, and choice of his actions.
Faith gives new light to the soul, but it does not put our eyes out; and what God hathgivenusinournature could never be intended as a snare to Religion, or engage us to believe a lie.
He that does a base thing in zeal for his friend burns the golden thread that ties their hearts together.
Marriage is the mother of the world. It preserves kingdoms, and fills cities and churches, and heaven itself.
No man is poor who does not think himself so. But if in a full fortune with impatience he desires more, he proclaims his wants and his beggarly condition.
Habits are the daughters of action, but then they nurse their mother, and produce daughters after her image, but far more beautiful and prosperous.
Aquinas was once asked, with what compendium a man might become learned? He answered "By reading of one book.
Drunkenness is an immoderate affection and use of drink. That I call immoderation that is besides or beyond that order of good things for which God hath given us the use of drink.
Laughing, if loud, ends with a deep sigh; and all pleasures have a sting in the tail, though they carry beauty in the face.
An unjust acquisition is like a barbed arrow, which must be drawn backward with horrible anguish, or else will be your destruction.
This temporal fire is but a painted fire in respect of that penetrating and real fire in hell.