Joseph Hall Quotes

56 Sourced Quotes

I first adventure, follow me who list
And be the second English satirist.

Joseph Hall
Death borders upon our birth, and our cradle stands in the grave.

Joseph Hall
So little in his purse, so much upon his back.

Joseph Hall
A legal thief, a bloodless murderer,
A fiend incarnate, a false usurer.

Joseph Hall
Let others either envy or pity me; I care not, so long as I enjoy myself.

Joseph Hall
Every day is a little life, and our whole life is but a day repeated. Therefore live every day as if it would be the last. Those that dare lose a day, are dangerously prodigal; those that dare misspend it are desperate.

Joseph Hall
He is wealthy enough, that wanteth not: he is great enough, that is his own master: he is happy enough, that lives to die well.

Joseph Hall
What I have done is worthy of nothing but silence and forgetfulness, but what God has done for me is worthy of everlasting and thankful memory.

Joseph Hall
Words are as they are taken, and things are as they are used. There are even cursed blessings.

Joseph Hall
How easy it is for men to be swollen with admiration of their own strength and glory, and to be lifted up so high as to lose sight both of the ground whence they rose, and the hand that advanced them.

Joseph Hall
There is many a rich stone laid up in the bowels of the earth, many a fair pearl laid up in the bosom of the sea, that never was seen, nor never shall be.

Joseph Hall
I have seldom seen much ostentation and much learning met together. The sun, rising and declining, makes long shadows; at mid day, when he is highest, none at all.

Joseph Hall
Satan would seem to be mannerly and reasonable; making as if he would be content with one-half of the heart, whereas God challengeth all or none: as, indeed, He hath most reason to claim all that made all. But this is nothing but a crafty fetch of Satan; for he knows that if he have any part, God will have none: so the whole falleth to his share alone.

Joseph Hall
There is no enemy can hurt us but by our own hands. Satan could not hurt us, if our own corruption betrayed us not. Afflictions cannot hurt us without our own impatience. Temptations cannot hurt us, without our own yieldance. Death could not hurt us, without the sting of our own sins. Sins could not hurt us, without our own impenitence.

Joseph Hall
Mark in what order: first, our calling; then, our election; not beginning with our election first. By our calling, arguing our election.

Joseph Hall
No marvel if the worldling escape earthly afflictions. God corrects him not. He is base born and begot. God will not do him the favour to whip him. The world afflicts him not, because it loves him: for each man is indulgent to his own. God uses not the rod where He means to use the Word. The pillory or scourge is for those malefactors that shall escape execution.

Joseph Hall
Ambition is torment enough for an enemy; for it affords as much discontentment in enjoying as in want, making men like poisoned rats, which, when they have tasted of their bane, cannot rest till they drink, and then can much less rest till they die

Joseph Hall
Lo, all princes and monarchs dance with us in the same ring.

Joseph Hall
'Mongst all these stirs of discontented strife,
O, let me lead an academic life;
To know much, and to think for nothing, know
Nothing to have, yet think we have enow.

Joseph Hall
Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl chain of all virtues.

Joseph Hall
I account this body nothing but a close prison to my soul; and the earth a larger prison to my body. I may not break prison till I be loosed by death; but I will leave it, not unwillingly, when I am loosed.

Joseph Hall
He is a very humble man, that thinks not himself better than some others.

Joseph Hall
If the sun of God's countenance shine upon me, I may well be content to be wet with the rain of affliction.

Joseph Hall
Not to be afflicted is a sign of weakness; for, therefore God imposeth no more on me, because He sees I can bear no more.

Joseph Hall
This field is so spacious that it were easy for a man to lose himself in it; and if I should spend all my pilgrimage in this walk, my time would sooner end than my way.

Joseph Hall
The idle man is the Devil's cushion, on which he taketh his free ease: who, as he is uncapable of any good, so he is fitly disposed for all evil motions.

Joseph Hall