Joseph Hall Quotes

56 Sourced Quotes

Even the best things ill used become evils; and, contrarily, the worst things used well prove good.

Joseph Hall
The best ground untilled, soonest runs out into rank weeds. A man of knowledge that is negligent or uncorrected, cannot but grow wild and godless.

Joseph Hall
As you see in a pair of bellows, there is a forced breath without life, so in those that are puffed up with the wind of ostentation, there may be charitable words without works.

Joseph Hall
He that taketh his own cares upon himself loads himself in vain with an uneasy burden. I will cast all my cares on God; He hath bidden me; they cannot burden Him.

Joseph Hall
Virtues go ever in troops; they go so thick, that sometimes some are hid in the crowd; which yet are, but appear not.

Joseph Hall
Neutrality in things good or evil is both odious and prejudicial; but in matters of an indifferent nature is safe and commendable. Herein taking of parts maketh sides, and breaketh unity. In an unjust cause of separation, he that favoreth both parts may perhaps have least love of either side, but hath most charity in himself.

Joseph Hall
Earthly greatness is a nice thing, and requires so much chariness in the managing, as the contentment of it cannot requite.

Joseph Hall
Death did not first strike Adam, the first sinful man, nor Cain, the first hypocrite, but Abel, the innocent and righteous. The first soul that met with death, overcame death; the first soul that parted from earth went to heaven. Death argues not displeasure, because he whom God loved best dies first, and the murderer is punished with living.

Joseph Hall
We must first pray, that God would make us wise; before we can wish, he would make us happy.

Joseph Hall
The ear and the eye are the mind's receivers; but the tongue is only busy in expending the treasures received. It, therefore, the revenues of the mind be uttered as fast or faster than they are received, it must needs be bare, and can never lay up for purchase.

Joseph Hall
I will rather suffer a thousand wrongs than offer one. I have always found that to strive with a superior is injurious; with an equal, doubtful; with an inferior, sordid and base; with any, full of unquietness.

Joseph Hall
God loves to see his creatures happy; our lawful delight is His; they know not God that think to please Him with making themselves miserable. The idolaters thought it a fit service for Baal to cut and lance themselves; never any holy man looked for thanks from the true God by wronging himself.

Joseph Hall
Garments that have once one rent in them are subject to be torn on every nail, and glasses that are once cracked are soon broken; such is man's good name once tainted with just reproach.

Joseph Hall
Our good purposes foreslowed are become our tormentors upon our deathbed.

Joseph Hall
There is no word or action but may be taken with two hands,--either with the right hand of charitable construction, or the sinister interpretation of malice and suspicion; and all things do succeed as they are taken. To construe an evil, action well is but a pleasing and profitable deceit to myself; but to misconstrue a good thing is a treble wrong,--to myself, the action, and the author.

Joseph Hall
How apt nature is, even in those who profess an eminence in holiness, to raise and maintain animosities against those whose calling or person they pretend to find cause to dislike!

Joseph Hall
Tranquillity consisteth in a steadiness of the mind; and how can that vessel that is beaten upon by contrary waves and winds, and tottereth to either part, be said to keep a steady course? Resolution is the only mother of security.

Joseph Hall
Recreation is intended to the mind as whetting is to the scythe, to sharpen the edge of it, which otherwise would grow dull and blunt,--as good no scythe as no edge.

Joseph Hall
And, if I were so low that I accounted myself the worst of all, yet some would account themselves in worse case.

Joseph Hall
How endless is that volume which God hath written of the world! Every creature is a letter, every day a new page.

Joseph Hall
What fools are we, to be besotted with the love of our own trouble, and to hate our liberty and rest!

Joseph Hall
Now you say, alas! Christianity is hard; I grant it; but gainful and happy. I contemn the difficulty when I respect the advantage. The greatest labors that have answerable requitals are less than the least that have no regard. Believe me, when I look to the reward, I would not have the work easier. It is a good Master whom we serve, who not only pays, but gives; not after the proportion of our earnings, but of His own mercy.

Joseph Hall
Christian society is like a bundle of sticks laid together, whereof one kindles another. Solitary men have fewest provocations to evil, but, again, fewest incitations to good. So much as doing good is better than not doing evil will I account Christian good-fellowship better than an hermitish and melancholy solitariness.

Joseph Hall
The godly man contrarily is afraid of nothing; not of God, because he knows Him his best friend, and will not hurt him; not of Satan, because he cannot hurt him; not of afflictions, because he knows they come from a loving God, and end in his good; not of the creatures, since "the very stones in the field are in league with Him;" not of himself, since his conscience is at peace.

Joseph Hall
The blood that is once inflamed with wine is apt to boil with rage.

Joseph Hall
For whom he means to make an often guest, One dish shall serve; and welcome make the rest.

Joseph Hall
Not only commission makes a sin. A man is guilty of all those sins he hateth not. If I cannot avoid all, yet I will hate all.

Joseph Hall
Revenge commonly hurts both the offerer and sufferer; as we see in a foolish bee, which in her anger invenometh the flesh and loseth her sting, and so lives a drone ever after.

Joseph Hall
The proud man hath no God; the envious
man hath no neighbor; the angry man
hath not himself.

Joseph Hall
Sorrows, because they are lingering guests, I will entertain but moderately, knowing that the more they are made of the longer they will continue: and for pleasures, because they stay not, and do but call to drink at my door, I will use them as passengers with slight respect. He is his own best friend that makes the least of both of them.

Joseph Hall