Owen Feltham Quotes

Reason and right give the quickest despatch.

Show me the man who would go to heaven alone if he could, and in that man I will show you one who will never be admitted into heaven.

Virtue dwells at the head of a river, to which we cannot get but by rowing against the stream.

There is no belittling worse than to over praise a man.

How many would die did not hope sustain them ...

That man is but of the lower part of the world that is not brought up to business and affairs.

It is rare to see a rich man religious; for religion preaches restraint, and riches prompt to unlicensed freedom.

Perfection is immutable. But for things imperfect, change is the way to perfect them.

Meditation is the soul's perspective glass.

Praise has different effects, according to the mind it meets with; it makes a wise man modest, but a fool more arrogant, turning his weak brain giddy.

He that, when he should not, spends too much, shall, when he would not, have too little to spend.

Gold is the fool's curtain, which hides all his defects from the world.

It is to be doubted whether he will ever find the way to heaven who desires to go thither alone.

Riches, though they may reward virtues, yet they cannot cause them; he is much more noble who deserves a benefit than he who bestows one.

The irresolute man flecks from one egg to another, so hatches nothing.

Promises may get friends, but it is performance that must nurse and keep them.

Contemplation is necessary to generate an object, but action must propagate it.

Virtue is the truest liberty.

Vice is a peripatetic, always in progression.

We pick our own sorrows out of the joys of other men, and from their sorrows likewise we derive our joys.

By gaming we lose both our time and treasure - two things most precious to the life of man.

Pleasures can undo a man at any time, if yielded to.

There is no one subsists by himself alone.

It is much safer to reconcile an enemy than to conquer him; victory may deprive him of his poison, but reconciliation of his will.

Truth and fidelity are the pillars of the temple of the world; when these are broken, the fabric falls, and crushes all to pieces.

Virtue were a kind of misery if fame were all the garland that crowned her.

Take heed of a speedy professing friend; love is never lasting which flames before it burns.

Men are like wine,
not good before the lees of clownishness be settled.

Where there is plenty, charity is a duty, not a courtesy

Knowledge is the treasure of the mind, but discretion is the key to it, without which it is useless. The practical part of wisdom is the best.

Honesty is a warrant of far more safety than fame.

Zeal without humanity is like a ship without a rudder, liable to be stranded at any moment.

A sentence well couched takes both the sense and understanding. I love not those cart-rope speeches that are longer than the memory of man can fathom.

To be gentle is the test of a lady.

Negligence is the rust of the soul, that corrodes through all her best resolves.

I love the man that is modestly valiant; that stirs not till he most needs, and then to purpose. A continued patience I commend not.

It is a most unhappy state to be at a distance with God: man needs no greater infelicity than to be left to himself.

If ever I should affect injustice, it would be in this, that I might do courtesies and receive none.

Discontent is like ink poured into water, which fills the whole fountain full of blackness.

He who would be singular in his apparel had need have something superlative to balance that affectation.

God has made no one absolute.

The boundary of man is moderation. When once we pass that pale our guardian angel quits his charge of us.