John Selden Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
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“Never tell your resolution beforehand, or it's twice as onerous a duty.”
-- John Selden -
“There is no book on which we can rest in a dying moment but the Bible.”
-- John Selden -
“The world cannot be governed without juggling.”
-- John Selden -
“The happiness of married life depends upon making small sacrifices with readiness and cheerfulness.”
-- John Selden -
“Idolatry is in a man's own thought, not in the opinion of another.”
-- John Selden -
“Ignorance of the law excuses no man; not that all men know the law, but because 'tis an excuse every man will plead, and no man can tell how to refute him.”
-- John Selden -
“I have taken much pains to know everything that is esteemed worth knowing amongst men; but with all my reading, nothing now remains to comfort me at the close of this life but this passage of St. Paul: "It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners." To this I cleave, and herein do I find rest.”
-- John Selden -
“The Parish makes the constable, and when the constable is made, he governs the Parish.”
-- John Selden -
“Prayer should be short, without giving God Almighty reasons why he should grant this, or that; he knows best what is good for us.”
-- John Selden -
“There was never a merry world since the fairies left off dancing.”
-- John Selden -
“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.”
-- John Selden -
“The House of Commons is called the Lower House, in twenty Acts of Parliament; but what are twenty Acts of Parliament amongst Friends?”
-- John Selden -
“Fine wits destroy themselves with their own plots, in meddling with great affairs of state.”
-- John Selden -
“The law against witches does not prove there be any; but it punishes the malice of those people that use such means to take away men's lives.”
-- John Selden -
“Opinion is something wherein I go about to give reasons why all the world should think as I think.”
-- John Selden -
“Thou little thinkest what a little foolery governs the world.”
-- John Selden -
“Gentelmen heve ever been more temperate in their religion than common people, as having more reason.”
-- John Selden -
“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.”
-- John Selden -
“Scrutamini scripturas (Let us look at the scriptures). These two words have undone the world.”
-- John Selden -
“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.”
-- John Selden -
“Every law is a contract between the king and the people and therefore to be kept.”
-- John Selden -
“More solid things do not show the complexion of the times so well as Ballads and Libels.”
-- John Selden -
“Take a straw and throw it up into the air, you may see by that which way the wind is.”
-- John Selden -
“Nothing is text but what is spoken of in the Bible and meant there for person and place; the rest is application; which a discreet man may do well; but it is his scripture, not the Holy Ghost's. First, in your sermons use your logic, and then your rhetoric; rhetoric without logic is like a tree with leaves and blossoms, but no root.”
-- John Selden -
“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.”
-- John Selden
