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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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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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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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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A good word is an easy obligation; but not to speak ill requires only our silence, which costs us nothing.
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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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None so nearly disposed to scoffing at religion as those who have accustomed themselves to swear on trifling occasions.
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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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Wickedness is a kind of voluntary frenzy, and a chosen distraction.
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The art of using deceit and cunning grow continually weaker and less effective to the user.
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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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With the history of Moses no book in the world, in point of antiquity, can contend.
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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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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.
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With what reason canst thou expect that thy children should follow thy good instructions, when thou thyself givest them an ill example? Thou dost but as it were beckon to them with thy head, and shew them the way to heaven by thy good counsel, but thou takest them by the hand and leadest them in the way to hell by thy contrary example.
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Abstinence is many times very helpful to the end of religion.
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They who are in the highest places, and have the most power, have the least liberty, because they are the most observed.
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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.