John Tillotson Quotes - Page 3

Truth is the shortest and nearest way to our end, carrying us thither in a straight line.

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.

With the history of Moses no book in the world, in point of antiquity, can contend.

No man's body is as strong as his appetites, but Heaven has corrected the boundlessness of his voluptuous desires by stinting his strength and contracting his capacities.

Convulsive anger storms at large; or pale And silent, settles into full revenge.

The little and short sayings of nice And excellent men are of great value, like the dust of gold, or the least sparks of diamonds.

In all the affairs of this world, so much reputation is in reality so much power.

Surely modesty never hurt any cause; and the confidence of man seems to me to be much like the wrath of man.

Abstinence is many times very helpful to the end of religion.

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.

Men sunk in the greatest darkness imaginable retain some sense and awe of the Deity.

If the show of any thing be good for any thing, I am sure sincerity is better; for why does any man dissemble, or seem to be that which he is not, but because he thinks it good to have such a quality as he pretends to?

There is one way whereby we may secure our riches, and make sure friends to ourselves of them,--by laying them out in charity.

Virtue and vice are not arbitrary things; but there is a natural and eternal reason for goodness and virtue, and against vice and wickedness.

If a man were only to deal in the world for a day, and should never have occasion to converse more with mankind, never more need their good opinion or good word, it were then no great matter (speaking as to the concernments of this world), if a man spent his reputation all at once, and ventured it at one throw; but if he be to continue in the world, and would have the advantage of conversation while he is in it, let him make use of truth and sincerity in all his words and actions; for nothing but this will last and hold out to the end.

And as for Pleasure, there is little in this World that is true and sincere, besides the Pleasure of doing our Duty, and of doing good.

Though all afflictions are evils in themselves, yet they are good for us, because they discover to us our disease and tend to our cure.

For a Man cannot believe a Miracle without relying upon Sense, nor Transubstantiation without renouncing it. So that never were any two things so ill coupled together as the Doctrine of Christianity and that of Transubstantiation, because they draw several ways, and are ready to strangle one another: For the main Evidence of the Christian Doctrine, which is Miracles, is resolved into the certainty of Sense, but this Evidence is clear and point blank against Transubstantiation.

If God were not a necessary Being of Himself, He might almost seem to be made for the use and benefit of men.

Next to the wicked lives of men, nothing is so great a disparagement and weakening to religion as the divisions of Christians.

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.

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.

Wickedness is a kind of voluntary frenzy, and a chosen distraction.

The crime of a bad example is the same whether men follow it or not, because he that gives bad example to others, does what in him lies to draw them into sin; and if they do not follow it, that is no mitigation of his fault.

The art of using deceit and cunning grow continually weaker and less effective to the user.