JOHN TILLOTSON

They who are in the highest places, and have the most power, have the least liberty, because they are the most observed.

Ignorance and inconsideration are the two great causes of the ruin of mankind.

Zeal is fit for wise men, but flourishes chiefly among fools.

A good word is an easy obligation; but not to speak ill requires only our silence, which costs us nothing.

The crafty person is always in danger; and when they think they walk in the dark, all their pretenses are transparent.

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

Sincerity is like traveling on a plain, beaten road, which commonly brings a man sooner to his journey's end than by-ways, in which men often lose themselves.

To be able to bear provocation is an argument of great reason, and to forgive it of a great mind.

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.

Was ever any wicked man free from the stings of a guilty conscience?

None so nearly disposed to scoffing at religion as those who have accustomed themselves to swear on trifling occasions.

Of all parts of wisdom, the practice is the best. Socrates was esteemed the wisest man of his time because he turned his acquired knowledge into morality, and aimed at goodness more than greatness.

Integrity gains strength by use.

Great is the advantage of patience.

Every man hath greater assurance that God is good and just than he can have of any subtle speculations about predestination and the decrees of God.

Wealth and riches, that is, an estate above what sufficeth our real occasions and necessities, is in no other sense a 'blessing' than as it is an opportunity put into our hands, by the providence of God, of doing more good.

For the spiritual efficacy of the Sacrament doth not depend upon the nature of the thing received, supposing we received what our Lord appointed, and receive it with a right preparation and disposition of mind, but upon the supernatural blessing that goes along with it, and makes it effectual to those spiritual ends for which it was appointed.

Every Christian is endued with a power whereby he is enabled to resist temptations.

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

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

Sincerity is to speak as we think, to do as we pretend and profess, to perform and make good what we promise, and really to be what we would seem and appear to be.

Take away God and religion, and men live to no purpose, without proposing any worthy end of life to themselves.

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

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

The covetous man heaps up riches, not to enjoy them, but to have them; and starves himself in the midst of plenty, and most unnaturally cheats and robs himself of that which is his own; and makes a hard shift, to be as poor and miserable with a great estate, as any man can be without it.