Francis Quarles - Man Quotes

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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
It is a most just punishment, that man should lose that freedom, which man could not use, yet had power to keep, if he would; and that he who had knowledge to do what was right, and did not should be deprived of the knowledge of what was right; and that he who would not do righteously, when he had the power, should lose the power to do it, when he had the will.

Francis Quarles
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
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
Gold is Caesar's treasure, man is God's; thy gold hath Caesar's image, and thou hast God's.

Francis Quarles
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
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
God hath given to mankind a common library, His creatures; to every man a proper book, himself being an abridgment of all others. If thou read with understanding, it will make thee a great master of philosophy, and a true servant of the divine Author: if thou but barely read, it will make thee thine own wise man and the Author's fool.

Francis Quarles
Prize not thyself by what thou hast, but by what thou art; he that values a jewel by her golden frame, or a book by her silver clasps, or a man by his vast estate, errs; if thou art not worth more than the world can make thee, thy Redeemer had a bad pennyworth, or thou an uncurious Redeemer.

Francis Quarles
Lust is an immoderate wantonness of the flesh, a sweet poison, a cruel pestilence; a pernicious poison, which weakeneth the body of man, and effeminateth the strength of the heroic mind.

Francis Quarles
Even such is man, whose glory lends
His life a blaze or two, and ends.

Francis Quarles
The worldly wisdom of the foolish man Is like a sieve, that does alone retain The grosser substance of the worthless bran: But thou, my soul, let thy brave thoughts disdain So coarse a purchase: O be thou a fan To purge the chaff, and keep the winnow'd grain: Make clean thy thoughts, and dress thy mixt desires: Thou art Heav'n's tasker, and thy God requires The purest of thy flow'r, as well as of thy fires.

Francis Quarles
Every man's vanity ought to be his greatest shame; and every man's folly ought to be his greatest secret.

Francis Quarles
No man is born unto himself alone;
Who lives unto himself, he lives to none.

Francis Quarles
Man is man's A.B.C. There is none that can
Read God aright, unless he first spell Man.

Francis Quarles
Charity feeds the poor, so does pride; charity builds an hospital, so does pride. In this they differ: charity gives her glory to God; pride takes her glory from man.

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 World's a mazy Labyrinth;
Man's lost without a Guide;
For if he vainly trust his Strength,
To Ruin he's decoy'd.

Francis Quarles