Owen Feltham Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
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“Meditation is the soul's perspective glass.”
-- Owen Feltham -
“To trust God when we have securities in our iron chest is easy, but not thankworthy; but to depend on him for what we cannot see, as it is more hard for man to do, so it is more acceptable to God.”
-- Owen Feltham -
“The greatest results in life are usually attained by simple means and the exercise of ordinary qualities. These may for the most part be summed up in these two - common sense and perseverance.”
-- Owen Feltham -
“Perfection is immutable. But for things imperfect, change is the way to perfect them.”
-- Owen Feltham -
“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.”
-- Owen Feltham -
“When two friends part they should lock up one another's secrets, and interchange their keys.”
-- Owen Feltham -
“It is to be doubted whether he will ever find the way to heaven who desires to go thither alone.”
-- Owen Feltham -
“Men are like wine,--not good before the lees of clownishness be settled.”
-- Owen Feltham -
“God has made no one absolute. The rich depend on the poor, as well as the poor on the rich. The world is but a magnificent building; all the stones are gradually cemented together. No one subsists by himself.”
-- Owen Feltham -
“We pick our own sorrows out of the joys of other men, and from their sorrows likewise we derive our joys.”
-- Owen Feltham -
“Time is like a ship which never anchors; while I am on board, I had better do those things that may profit me at my landing, than practice such as shall cause my commitment when I come ashore.”
-- Owen Feltham -
“He who would be singular in his apparel had need have something superlative to balance that affectation.”
-- Owen Feltham -
“Pleasures can undo a man at any time, if yielded to.”
-- Owen Feltham -
“Human life has not a surer friend, nor oftentimes a greater enemy, than hope. It is the miserable man's god, which in the hardest gripe of calamity never fails to yield to him beams of comfort. It is the presumptuous man's devil, which leads him a while in a smooth way, and then suddenly breaks his neck.”
-- Owen Feltham -
“Business is the salt of life, which not only gives a grateful smack to it, but dries up those crudities that would offend, preserves from putrefaction and drives off all those blowing flies that would corrupt it.”
-- Owen Feltham -
“For converse among men, beautiful persons have less need of the mind's commending qualities. Beauty in itself is such a silent orator, that it is ever pleading for respect and liking, and by the eyes of others is ever sending, to their hearts for love.”
-- Owen Feltham -
“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.”
-- Owen Feltham -
“It is rare to see a rich man religious; for religion preaches restraint, and riches prompt to unlicensed freedom.”
-- Owen Feltham -
“That man is but of the lower part of the world that is not brought up to business and affairs.”
-- Owen Feltham -
“Irresolution is a worse vice than rashness. He that shoots best may sometimes miss the mark; but he that shoots not at all can never hit it. Irresolution loosens all the joints of a state; like an ague, it shakes not this nor that limb, but all the body is at once in a fit. The irresolute man is lifted from one place to another; so hatcheth nothing, but addles all his actions.”
-- Owen Feltham -
“The boundary of man is moderation. When once we pass that pale our guardian angel quits his charge of us.”
-- Owen Feltham -
“It is much safer to reconcile an enemy than to conquer him; victory may deprive him of his poison, but reconciliation of his will.”
-- Owen Feltham -
“Every man should study conciseness in speaking; it is a sign of ignorance not to know that long speeches, though they may please the speaker, are the torture of the hearer.”
-- Owen Feltham -
“Contemplation is necessary to generate an object, but action must propagate it.”
-- Owen Feltham -
“He that, when he should not, spends too much, shall, when he would not, have too little to spend.”
-- Owen Feltham -
“No man can expect to find a friend without faults; nor can he propose himself to be so to another. Without reciprocal mildness and temperance there can be no continuance of friendship. Every man will have something to do for his friend, and something to bear with in him. The sober man only can do the first; and for the latter, patience is requisite. It is better for a man to depend on himself, than to be annoyed with either a madman or a fool.”
-- Owen Feltham -
“Some are so uncharitable as to think all women bad, and others are so credulous as to believe they are all good. All will grant her corporeal frame more wonderful and more beautiful than man's. And can we think God would put a worse soul into a better body?”
-- Owen Feltham -
“Virtue were a kind of misery if fame were all the garland that crowned her.”
-- Owen Feltham
