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Francis Quarles Quotes
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He that discovers himself, till he hath made himself master of his desires, lays himself open to his own ruin, and makes himself prisoner to his own tongue.
Francis Quarles
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If thou desire to be held wise, be so wise as to hold thy tongue.
Francis Quarles
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The birds of the air die to sustain thee; the beasts of the field die to nourish thee; the fishes of the sea die to feed thee. Our stomachs are their common sepulchre. Good God! with how many deaths are our poor lives patched up! how full of death is the life of momentary man!
Francis Quarles
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A despairing heart is the true prophet of approaching evil; his actions may weave the webs of Fortune, but not break them.
Francis Quarles
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Be as far from desiring the popular love as fearful to deserve the popular hate; ruin dwells in both: the one will hug thee to death; the other will crush thee to destruction: to escape the first, be not ambitious; to avoid the second, be not seditious.
Francis Quarles
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My soul, the seas are rough, and thou a stranger In these false coasts; O keep aloof; there's danger; Cast forth thy plummet; see, a rock appears; Thy ships want sea-room; make it with thy tears.
Francis Quarles
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In the height of thy prosperity expect adversity, but fear it not. If it come not, thou art the more sweetly possessed of the happiness thou hast, and the more strongly confirmed. If it come, thou art the more gently dispossessed of the happiness thou hadst, and the more firmly prepared.
Francis Quarles
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For trash and toys, And grief-engend'ring joys, What torment seems too sharp for flesh and blood; What bitter pills, Compos'd of real ills, Men swallow down to purchase one false good!
Francis Quarles
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If thou desire to see thy child virtuous, let him not see his father's vices: thou canst not rebuke that in them, that they behold practised in thee; till reason be ripe, examples direct more than precepts: such as thy behaviour is before thy children's faces, such commonly is theirs behind their parents' backs.
Francis Quarles
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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
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Neutrality is dangerous, whereby thou becomest a necessary prey to the conqueror.
Francis Quarles
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Of all the difficulties in a state, the temper of a true government most felicifies and perpetuates it; too sudden alterations distemper it. Had Nero tuned his kingdom as he did his harp, his harmony had been more honorable, and his reign more prosperous.
Francis Quarles
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Whose gold is double with a careful hand, His cares are double.
Francis Quarles
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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
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Diogenes found more rest in his tub than Alexander on his throne.
Francis Quarles
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Demean thyself more warily in thy study than in the street. If thy public actions have a hundred witnesses, thy private have a thousand. The multitude looks but upon thy actions; thy conscience looks into them: the multitude may chance to excuse thee, if not acquit thee; thy conscience will accuse thee, if not condemn thee.
Francis Quarles
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If thou desire to purchase honor with thy wealth, consider first how that wealth became thine; if thy labor got it, let thy wisdom keep it; if oppression found it, let repentance restore it; if thy parent left it, let thy virtues deserve it; so shall thy honor be safer, better and cheaper.
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Gaze not on beauty too much, lest it blast thee; nor too long, lest it blind thee; nor too near, lest it burn thee. If thou like it, it deceives thee; if thou love it, it disturbs thee; if thou hunt after it, it destroys thee. If virtue accompany it, it is the heart's paradise; if vice associate it, it is the soul's purgatory. It is the wise man's bonfire, and the fool's furnace.
Francis Quarles
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To fear death is the way to live long; to lie afraid of death is to be long a dying.
Francis Quarles
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My soul, what's lighter than a feather? Wind.
Than wind? The fire. And what than fire? The mind.
What's lighter than the mind? A thought. Than thought?
This bubble world. What than this bubble? Nought.
Francis Quarles
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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
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Gold is Caesar's treasure, man is God's; thy gold hath Caesar's image, and thou hast God's.
Francis Quarles
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In the commission of evil, fear no man so much as thyself; another is but one witness against thee, thou art a thousand; another thou mayest avoid, thyself thou canst not. Wickedness is its own punishment.
Francis Quarles
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If thou expect death as a friend, prepare to entertain it; if thou expect death as an enemy, prepare to overcome it; death has no advantage, but when it comes a stranger.
Francis Quarles
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Think not thy love to God merits God's love to thee; His acceptance of thy duty crowns His own gifts in thee; man's love to God is nothing but a faint reflection of God's love to man.
Francis Quarles
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Quote of the day
At last, in 1611, was made, under the auspices of King James, the famous King James version; and this is the great literary monument of the English language.
Lafcadio Hearn
Francis Quarles
Creative Commons
Born:
May 8, 1592
Died:
September 8, 1644
(aged 52)
Bio:
Francis Quarles was an English poet most famous for his Emblem book aptly entitled Emblems.
Known for:
Emblemes (1635)
Emblems, divine and moral
Judgment and mercy for afflicted souls
Most used words:
day
man
glory
sweet
god
life
bring
phosphor
virtue
fear
soul
alone
danger
building
night
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