John Tillotson Quotes
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If our souls be immortal, this makes amends for the frailties of life and the sufferings of this state.
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If people would but provide for eternity with the same solicitude and real care as they do for this life, they could not fail of heaven.
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Men sunk in the greatest darkness imaginable retain some sense and awe of the Deity.
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A little wit and a great deal of ill-nature will furnish a man for satire; but the greatest instance of wit is to commend well.
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True wisdom is a thing very extraordinary. Happy are they that have it: and next to them, not those many that think they have it, but those few that are sensible of their own defects and imperfections, and know that they have it not.
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Piety and virtue are not only delightful for the present, but they leave peace and contentment behind them.
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Surely modesty never hurt any cause; and the confidence of man seems to me to be much like the wrath of man.
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Ignorance and inconsideration are the two great causes of the ruin of mankind.
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Whatever convenience may be thought to be in falsehood and dissimulation, it is soon over; but the inconvenience of it is perpetual, because it brings a man under everlasting jealousy and suspicion, so that he is not believed when he speaks the truth, nor trusted when perhaps he means honestly.
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Sincerity is to speak as we think, to do as we pretend and profess, to perform and make good what we promise, and really to be what we would seem and appear to be.
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Some things will not bear much zeal; and the more earnest we are about them, the less we recommend ourselves to the approbation of sober and considerate men.
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A good word is an easy obligation; but not to speak ill requires only our silence, which costs us nothing.
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Religion in a magistrate strengthens his authority, because it procures veneration, and gains a reputation to it. In all the affairs of this world, so much reputation is in reality so much power.
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With the history of Moses no book in the world, in point of antiquity, can contend.
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None so nearly disposed to scoffing at religion as those who have accustomed themselves to swear on trifling occasions.
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The art of using deceit and cunning grow continually weaker and less effective to the user.
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Wickedness is a kind of voluntary frenzy, and a chosen distraction.
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There is no man that is knowingly wicked but is guilty to himself; and there is no man that carries guilt about him but he receives a sting in his soul.
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Even so does he who provides for the short time of this life, but takes no care for all eternity; which is to be wise for a moment, but a fool for ever; and to act as crossly to the reason of things as can be imagined; to regard time as if it were eternity, and to neglect eternity as if it were but a short time.
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Virtue and vice are not arbitrary things; but there is a natural and eternal reason for goodness and virtue, and against vice and wickedness.
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Abstinence is many times very helpful to the end of religion.
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Truth is the shortest and nearest way to our end, carrying us thither in a straight line.
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There are two restraints which God has laid upon human nature, shame and fear; shame is the weaker, and has place only in those in whom there are some reminders of virtue.
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The covetous man heaps up riches, not to enjoy them, but to have them; and starves himself in the midst of plenty, and most unnaturally cheats and robs himself of that which is his own; and makes a hard shift, to be as poor and miserable with a great estate, as any man can be without it.