John Selden Quotes

67 quotes in 757 categories

• Never tell your resolution beforehand, or it's twice as onerous a duty.
• Pleasures are all alike simply considered in themselves: he that hunts, or he that governs the commonwealth, they both please themselves alike, only we commend…
• Wise people say nothing in dangerous times.
• We pick out a text here and there to make it serve our turn; whereas , if we take it all together, and considered what…
• Of all the actions of a man's life, his marriage does least concern other people, yet of all the actions of our lives, 'tis the…
• Humility is a virtue all preach, none practice; and yet everybody is content to hear.
• Abundance consists not alone in material possession, but in an uncovetous spirit.
• If the prisoner should ask the judge whether he would be content to be hanged, were he in his case, he would answer no. Then,…
• I have taken much pains to know everything that is esteemed worth knowing amongst men; but with all my reading, nothing now remains to comfort…
• He that has not religion to govern his morality, is not a dram better than my mastiff-dog; so long as you stroke him, and please…
• To preach long, loud, and Damnation, is the way to be cried up. We love a man that damns us, and we run after him…
• Pleasure is nothing else but the intermission of pain.
• A glorious Church is like a magnificent feast; there is all the variety that may be, but every one chooses out a dish or two…
• While you are upon the earth, enjoy the good things that are here.
• Pride may be allowed to this or that degree, else a man cannot keep up his dignity.
• Ignorance of the law excuses no man; not that all men know the law, but because 'tis an excuse every man will plead, and no…
• Idolatry is in a man's own thought, not in the opinion of another.
• It's not the drinking to be blamed, but the excess.
• Pride may be allowed to this or that degree, else a man cannot keep up dignity. In gluttony there must be eating, in drunkenness there…
• First, in your sermons, use your logic, and then your rhetoric; Rhetoric without logic, is like a tree with leaves and blossoms, but no root;…

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