Owen Feltham Quotes

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

Reason and right give the quickest despatch.

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.

Honesty is a warrant of far more safety than fame.

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

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

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

He that despairs degrades the Deity, and seems to intimate that He is insufficient, or not just to His word; and in vain hath read the scriptures, the world, and man.

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.

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

Any man shall speak the better when he knows what others have said, and sometimes the consciousness of his inward knowledge gives a confidence to his outward behavior, which of all other is the best thing to grace a man in his carriage.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Surely, if we considered detraction to be bred of envy, nested only in deficient minds, we should find that the applauding of virtue would win us far more honor than the seeking slyly to disparage it. That would show we loved what we commended, while this tells the world we grudge at what we want in ourselves.

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

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

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

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

Meditation is the soul's perspective glass.

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.

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.

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.

To be gentle is the test of a lady.

The noblest part of a friend is an honest boldness in the notifying of errors. He that tells me of a fault, aiming at my good, I must think him wise and faithful
wise in spying that which I see not; faithful in a plain admonishment, not tainted with flattery.

Fear, if it be not immoderate, puts a guard about us that does watch and defend us; but credulity keeps us naked, and lays us open to all the sly assaults of ill-intending men: it was a virtue when man was in his innocence; but since his fall, it abuses those that own it.

Hope is to a man as a bladder to a learning swimmer
it keeps him from sinking in the bosom of the waves, and by that help he may attain the exercise; but yet it many times makes him venture beyond his height, and then if that breaks, or a storm rises, he drowns without recovery. How many would die, did not hope sustain them! How many have died by hoping too much! This wonder we find in Hope, that she is both a flatterer and a true friend.

Vice is a peripatetic, always in progression.

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

There is no man but for his own interest hath an obligation to be honest. There may be sometimes temptations to be otherwise; but, all cards cast up, he shall find it the greatest ease, the highest profit, the best pleasure, the most safety, and the noblest fame, to hold the horns of this altar, which, in all assays, can in himself protect him.

Works without faith are like a fish without water, it wants the element it should live in. A building without a basis cannot stand; faith is the foundation, and every good action is as a stone laid.

All men will be Peters in their bragging tongue, and most men will be Peters in their base denial; but few men will be Peters in their quick repentance.

God has made no one absolute.

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

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

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.