Roger L'Estrange Quotes

What man in his right senses, that has wherewithal to live free, would make himself a slave for superfluities? What does that man want who has enough? Or what is he the better for abundance that can never be satisfied.

The very soul of the slothful does effectually but lie drowsing in his body, and the whole man is totally given up to his senses.

A universal applause is seldom less than two thirds of a scandal

Figure-flingers and star-gazers pretend to foretell the fortunes of kingdoms, and have no foresight in what concerns themselves.

He that would live clear of envy must lay his finger on his mouth, and keep his hand out of the ink-pot.

Pretences go a great way with men that take fair words and magisterial looks for current payment.

Avarice is insatiable, and is always pushing on for more.

Some natures are so sour and ungrateful that they are never to be obliged.

Unruly ambition is deaf, not only to the advice of friends, but to the counsels and monitions of reason itself.

Wickedness may prosper for a while.

Passions, as fire and water, are good servants, but bad masters, and subminister to the best and worst purposes.

All duties are matters of conscience, with this restriction that a superior obligation suspends the force of an inferior one.

The blessings of fortune are the lowest; the next are the bodily advantages of strength and health; but the superlative blessings, in fine, are those of the mind.

Some read books only with a view to find fault, while others read only to be taught; the former are like venomous spiders, extracting a poisonous quality, where the latter, like the bees, sip out a sweet and profitable juice.

He that contemns a shrew to the degree of not descending to words with her does worse than beat her.

There is no creature so contemptible but by resolution may gain his point.

The fairest blossoms of pleasantry thrive best where the sun is not strong enough to scorch, nor the soil rank enough to corrupt.

Money does all things,
for it gives and it takes away; it makes honest men and knaves, fools and philosophers; and so forward, mutatis mutandis, to the end of the chapter.

Live and let live is the rule of common justice.

Tutors should behave reverently before their pupils.

So long as we stand in need of a benefit, there is nothing dearer to us; nor anything cheaper when we have received it.

It is a way of calling a man a fool when no attention is given to what he says.

Imperfections would not be half so much taken notice of, if vanity did not make proclamation of them.

What signifies the sound of words in prayer without the affection of the heart, and a sedulous application of the proper means that may naturally lead us to such an end?

It is one of the vexatious mortifications of a studious man to have his thoughts disordered by a tedious visit.

Wickedness may prosper for awhile, but in the long run, he that sets all the knaves at work will pay them.

He that serves God for money will serve the Devil for better wages.

Partiality in a parent is unlucky; for fondlings are in danger to be made fools.

A body may well lay too little as too much stress upon a dream; but the less he heed them the better.

There is no opposing brutal force to the stratagems of human reason.

Much tongue and much judgment seldom go together.

The common people do not judge of vice or virtue by morality or immorality, so much as by the stamp that is set upon it by men of figure.

The lowest boor may laugh on being tickled, but a man must have intelligence to be amused by wit.