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Home  »  Dictionary of Quotations  »  Quarles

James Wood, comp. Dictionary of Quotations. 1899.

Quarles

A monarchy is apt to fall by tyranny; an aristocracy, by ambition; a democracy, by tumults.

Anger, when it is long in coming, is the stronger when it comes, and the longer kept.

As there is no worldly gain without some loss, so there is no worldly loss without some gain.

Be wisely worldly; be not worldly wise.

But wouldst thou know what’s heaven? I’ll tell thee what: / Think what thou canst not think, and heaven is that.

Convey thy love to thy friend as an arrow to the mark; not as a ball against the wall, to rebound back again.

Demean thyself more warily in thy study than in the street. If thy public actions have a hundred witnesses, thy private have a thousand.

Enough requires too much; too much craves more.

Falls have their risings, wanings have their primes, / And desperate sorrows wait for better times.

Fear not where Heaven bids come; / Heaven’s never deaf but when man’s heart is dumb.

God is alpha and omega in the great world; endeavour to make Him so in the little world.

Gold is Cæsar’s treasure, man is God’s; thy gold hath Cæsar’s image, and thou hast God’s.

Hath fortune dealt thee ill cards? Let wisdom make thee a good gamester.

He is below himself who is not above an injury.

He never yet stood sure that stands secure.

He that hath but gained the title of a jester, let him assure himself the fool is not far off.

Heav’n finds an ear when sinners find a tongue.

Heav’n is not always got by running.

Heav’n is not day’d. Repentance is not dated.

Heaven is never deaf but when man’s heart is dumb.

Heaven’s fire confounds when fann’d with folly’s breath.

Hid jewels are but lost.

Hold up thy head; the taper lifted high / Will brook the wind when lower tapers die.

If thou deniest to a laborious man and a deserving, thou killest a bee; if thou givest to other than such, thou preservest a drone.

In a fair gale every fool may sail, but wise behaviour in a storm commends the wisdom of the pilot.

It is but vain to waste honey on those that will be caught with gall.

Judge not the play before the play is done; / Her plot has many changes; every day / Speaks a new scene; the last act crowns the play.

Know, fools only trade by the eye.

Knowledge descries alone, wisdom applies: / That makes some fools, this maketh none but wise.

Knowledge, when wisdom is too weak to guide her, / Is like a headstrong horse that throws the rider.

Let those have night that love the night.

Life lies most open in a closed eye.

Make clean thy conscience; hide thee there.

Meditation is the life of the soul; action, the soul of meditation; honour, the reward of action.

Mercy turns her back to the unmerciful.

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.

No cross, no crown.

Of more than earth can earth make none possesst; / And he that least / Regards this restless world, shall in this world find rest.

Physicians, of all men, are most happy; whatever good success soever they have, the world proclaimeth; and what faults they commit, the earth covereth.

Prayer is the cable, at whose end appears / The anchor hope, ne’er slipp’d but in our fears.

Read not books alone, but men, and amongst them chiefly thyself; if thou find anything questionable there, use the commentary of a severe friend rather than the gloss of a sweet-lipped flatterer; there is more profit in a distasteful truth than deceitful sweetness.

Scandal breeds hatred, hatred begets divisions, division makes faction, and faction brings ruin.

Slave to silver’s but a slave to smoke.

That action is not warrantable which either blushes to beg a blessing, or, having succeeded, dares not present a thanksgiving.

The fairest tulip’s not the sweetest flower.

The fruit that’s yellow / Is found not always mellow.

The greater height sends down the deeper fall: / And good declin’d turns bad, turns worst of all.

The ill that’s wisely feared is half withstood, / And fear of bad is the best foil to good.

The last act crowns the play.

The popular ear weighs what you are, not what you were.

The righteous man falls oft, / Yet falls but soft; / There may be dirt to mire him, but no stones / To crush his bones.

The road to resolution lies by doubt.

The way’s not easy where the prize is great.

The world’s a sea.

There is no loss / In being small; great bulks but swell with dross. / Man is heaven’s masterpiece; if it appear / More great, the value’s less; if less, more dear.

There’s none that can / Read God aright, unless he first spell man.

Thou art Heaven’s tasker; and thy God requires / The purest of thy flour, as well as of thy fires.

True love will creep, not having strength to go.

Trust not this hollow world; she’s empty; hark, she sounds.

Understanding is the wages of a lively faith, and faith is the reward of a humble ignorance.

We gape, we grasp, we gripe, add store to store; / Enough requires too much; too much craves more.

What bitter pills, / Compos’d of real ills, / Men swallow down to purchase one false good.

When ambitious men find an open passage, they are rather busy than dangerous; and if well watched in their proceedings, they will catch themselves in their own snare, and prepare a way for their own destruction.

When Peter’s cock begins to crow, ’tis day.

Where lies are easily admitted, the father of lies will not easily be excluded.

Which is the lightest in the scale of Fate? / That where fond Cupid still is adding weight.

Whining lover may as well request / A scornful breast / To melt in gentle tears, as woo the world for rest.

Wickedness is its own punishment.

Wisdom not only gets, but, got, retains.