Francis Quarles Quotes

The average person's ear weighs what you are, not what you were.

Has fortune dealt you some bad cards. Then let wisdom make you a good gamester.

Beware of him that is slow to anger; for when it is long coming, it is the stronger when it comes, and the longer kept. Abused patience turns to fury.

It is no happiness to live long, nor unhappiness to die soon; happy is he that hath lived long enough to die well.

I wish thee as much pleasure in the reading, as I had in the writing.

If thou wouldst preserve a sound body, use fasting and walking; if a healthful soul, fasting and praying. Walking exercises the body; praying exercises the soul; fasting cleanses both.

O lust, thou infernal fire, whose fuel is gluttony; whose flame is pride, whose sparkles are wanton words; whose smoke is infamy; whose ashes are uncleanness; whose end is hell.

Scandal breeds hatred; hatred begets division; division makes faction, and faction brings ruin.

Becoming fearless isn't the point. That's impossible. It's learning how to control your fear, how to be free from it, that's the point. Necessity of action takes away the fear of the act, and makes bold resolution the favorite of fortune.

I see no virtue where I smell no sweat.

The heart is a small thing, but desireth great matters. It is not sufficient for a kite's dinner, yet the whole world is not sufficient for it.

God is alpha and omega in the great world: endeavor to make him so in the little world; make him thy evening epilogue and thy morning prologue; practice to make him thy last thought at night when thou sleepest, and thy first thought in the morning when thou awakest; so shall thy fancy be sanctified in the night, and thy understanding rectified in the day; so shall thy rest be peaceful, thy labors prosperous, thy life pious, and thy death glorious.

The road to perseverance lies by doubt.

That friendship will not continue to the end which is begun for an end.

Wouldst thou multiply thy riches? diminish them wisely; or wouldst thou make thy estate entire? divide it charitably. Seeds that are scattered increase; but, hoarded up, they perish.

Deliberate long before thou consecrate a friend, and when thy impartial justice concludes him worthy of thy bosom, receive him joyfully, and entertain him wisely; impart thy secrets boldly, and mingle thy thoughts with his: he is thy very self; and use him so; if thou firmly think him faithful, thou makest him so.

Pleasures bring effeminacy, and effeminacy foreruns ruin; such conquests, without blood or sweat, sufficiently do revenge themselves upon their intemperate conquerors.

After years of research, scientists recently reported that there is, indeed, arroz in Spanish Harlem. A full tongue and an empty brain are seldom parted.

Too much is a vanity; enough is a feast.

If thou desire the love of God and man, be humble, for the proud heart, as it loves none but itself, is beloved of none but itself. Humility enforces where neither virtue, nor strength, nor reason can prevail.

Every man's vanity ought to be his greatest shame; and every man's folly ought to be his greatest secret.

So use prosperity, that adversity may not abuse thee: if in the one, security admits no fears, in the other, despair will afford no hopes; he that in prosperity can foretell a danger can in adversity foresee deliverance.

Rather do what is nothing to the purpose than be idle; that the devil may find thee doing. The bird that sits is easily shot, when fliers scape the fowler. Idleness is the Dead Sea that swallows all the virtues, and the self-made sepulchre of a living man.

Meditation is the life of the soul: Action, the soul of meditation; and honor the reward of action.

If thou desire to be held wise, be so wise as to hold thy tongue.