John Selden Quotes - Page 3

You will want a book which contains not man's thoughts, but God's - not a book that may amuse you, but a book that can save you - not even a book that can instruct you, but a book on which you can venture an eternity - not only a book which can give relief to your spirit, but redemption to your soul - a book which contains salvation, and conveys it to you, one which shall at once be the Saviour's book and the sinner's.

Never king dropped out of the clouds.

Wit and wisdom are born with a man.

Pleasure is nothing else but the intermission of pain, the enjoying of something I am in great trouble for till I have it.

We look after religion as the butcher did after his knife, when he had it in his mouth.

Gentelmen heve ever been more temperate in their religion than common people, as having more reason.

They that are against Superstition oftentimes run into it of the wrong side. If I will wear all colours but black, then am I superstitious in not wearing black.

Tis not seasonable to call a man traitor, that has an army at his heels.

Equity is a roguish thing. For Law we have a measure, know what to trust to; Equity is according to the conscience of him that is Chancellor, and as that is larger or narrower, so is Equity. 'T is all one as if they should make the standard for the measure we call a "foot" a Chancellor's foot; what an uncertain measure would this be! One Chancellor has a long foot, another a short foot, a third an indifferent foot. 'T is the same thing in the Chancellor's conscience.

Every law is a contract between the king and the people and therefore to be kept.

Scrutamini scripturas (Let us look at the scriptures). These two words have undone the world.

More solid things do not show the complexion of the times so well as Ballads and Libels.

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, says the prisoner, do as you would be done to.

Wit and wisdom differ; wit is upon the sudden turn, wisdom is bringing about ends.

Money makes a man laugh.

Religion is like the fashion, one man wears his doublet slashed, another lashed, another plain; but every man has a doublet; so every man has a religion. We differ about the trimming.

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 most meddled with by other people.

Pride may be allowed to this or that degree, else a man cannot keep up his dignity.

When men comfort themselves with philosophy, 'tis not because they have got two or three sentences, but because they have digested those sentences, and made them their own: philosophy is nothing but discretion.

Old friends are best. King James used to call for his old shoes; they were the easiest for his feet.

The Hall was the place where the great lord used to eat . . . He ate not in private, except in time of sickness . . . Nay, the king himself used to eat in the Hall, and his lords sat with him, and he understood men.

Take a straw and throw it up into the air, you may see by that which way the wind is.

Marriage is a desperate thing.

Commonly we say a judgment falls upon a man for something in him we cannot abide.

We pick out a text here and there to make it serve our turn; whereas , if we take it all together, and considered what went before and what followed after, we should find it meant no such thing.