Francis Quarles Quotes

129 Sourced Quotes

Fear nothing but what thy industry may prevent; be confident of nothing but what fortune cannot defeat; it is no less folly to fear what is impossible to be avoided than to be secure when there is a possibility to be deprived.

Francis Quarles
If thou desire the love of God and man, be humble, for the proud heart, as it loves none but itself, is beloved of none but itself. Humility enforces where neither virtue, nor strength, nor reason can prevail.

Francis Quarles
If thou desire to be held wise, be so wise as to hold thy tongue.

Francis Quarles
Thy pride is but the prologue of thy shame; where vain-glory commands, there folly counsels; where pride rides, there shame lackeys.

Francis Quarles
Hath fortune dealt thee ill cards? let wisdom make thee a good gamester. In a fair gale, every fool may sail, but wise behavior in a storm commends the wisdom of a pilot; to bear adversity with an equal mind is both the sign and glory of a brave spirit.

Francis Quarles
Deliberate long before thou consecrate a friend, and when thy impartial justice concludes him worthy of thy bosom, receive him joyfully, and entertain him wisely; impart thy secrets boldly, and mingle thy thoughts with his: he is thy very self; and use him so; if thou firmly think him faithful, thou makest him so.

Francis Quarles
Yet, sluggard, wake, and gull thy soul no more With earth's false pleasures, and the world's delight, Whose fruit is fair and pleasing to the sight, But sour in taste, false as the putrid core: Thy flaring glass is gems at her half light; She makes thee seeming rich, but truly poor: She boasts a kernel, and bestows a shell; Performs an inch of her fair-promis'd ell: Her words protest a heav'n; her works produce a hell.

Francis Quarles
Use law and physic only for necessity; they that use them otherwise abuse themselves unto weak bodies, and light purses; they are good remedies, bad businesses, and worse recreations.

Francis Quarles
Be very vigilant over thy child in the April of his understanding, lest the frost of May nip his blossoms. While he is a tender twig, straighten him; whilst he is a new vessel, season him; such as thou makest him, such commonly shall thou find him. Let his first lesson be obedience and his second shall be what thou wilt.

Francis Quarles
See how the world (whose chaste and pregnant womb Of late conceiv'd, and brought forth nothing ill) Is now degenerated, and become A base adult'ress, whose false births do fill The earth with monsters, monsters that do roam And rage about, and make a trade to kill: Now glutt'ny paunches, and avarice a pawn; Pale envy pines, pride swells, and sloth begins to yawn.

Francis Quarles
In having all things, and not Thee, what have I?
Not having Thee, what have my labors got?
Let me enjoy but Thee, what farther crave I?
And having Thee alone, what have I not?

Francis Quarles
How is the anxious soul of man befool'd in his desire,
That thinks an hectic fever may be cool'd in flames of fire?

Francis Quarles
The road to resolution lies by doubt:
The next way home's the farthest way about.

Francis Quarles
Though virtue give a ragged livery, she gives a golden cognizance; if her service make thee poor, blush not. Thy poverty may disadvantage thee, but not dishonor thee.

Francis Quarles
Sin is a basilisk whose eyes are full of venom. If the eye of thy soul see her first, it reflects her own poison and kills her; if she see thy soul, unseen, or seen too late, with her poison, she kills thee: since therefore thou canst not escape thy sin, let not thy sin escape thy observation.

Francis Quarles
If any speak ill of thee, flee home to thy own conscience, and examine thy heart: if thou be guilty, it is a just correction; if not guilty, it is a fair instruction: make use of both; so shalt thou distil honey out of gall, and out of an open enemy create a secret friend.

Francis Quarles
The voice of humility is God's music, and the silence of humility is God's rhetoric.

Francis Quarles
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.

Francis Quarles
Let the foundation of thy affection be virtue, then make the building as rich as glorious as thou canst; if the foundation be beauty or wealth, and the building virtue, the foundation is too weak for the building, and it will fall: happy is he, the palace of whose affection is founded upon virtue, walled with riches glazed with beauty, and roofed with honor.

Francis Quarles
Scandal breeds hatred; hatred begets division; division makes faction, and faction brings ruin.

Francis Quarles
A lamb appears a lion, and we fear Each bush we see's a bear.

Francis Quarles
Nor fire, nor rocks, can stop our furious minds, Nor waves, nor winds.

Francis Quarles
The way to bliss lies not on beds of down,
And he that had no cross deserves no crown.

Francis Quarles
Take heed thou trust not the deceitful lap Of wanton Dalilah; the world's a trap.

Francis Quarles
Mark, how the ready hands of Death prepare: His bow is bent, and he hath notch'd his dart; He aims, he levels at thy slumb'ring heart: The wound is posting, O be wise, beware.

Francis Quarles