Top 100 Francis Quarles Quotes
#1. 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
#2. 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
#3. Proportion thy charity to the strength of thine estate, lest God proportion thine estate to the weakness of thy charity. Let the lips of the poor be the trumpet of thy gift, lest in seeking applause, thou lose thy reward. Nothing is more pleasing to God than an open hand and a closed mouth.
Francis Quarles
#4. Wouldst thou multiply thy riches? diminish them wisely; or wouldst thou make thy estate entire? divide it charitably. Seeds that are scattered increase; but, hoarded up, they perish.
Francis Quarles
#5. Lust is a sharp spur to vice, which always putteth the affections into a false gallop.
Francis Quarles
#6. The sufficiency of merit is to know that my merit is not sufficient.
Francis Quarles
#7. We sack, we ransack to the utmost sands
Of native kingdoms, and of foreign lands:
We travel sea and soil; we pry, and prowl,
We progress, and we prog from pole to pole.
Francis Quarles
#10. Some only break their Fast, and so away:
Others stay to Dinner, and depart full fed:
The deepest Age but Sups, and goes to Bed:
He's most in debt that lingers out the Day:
Who dies betime, has less, and less to pay.
Francis Quarles
#11. False world, thou ly'st: thou canst not lend The least delight: Thy favours cannot gain a friend, They are so slight.
Francis Quarles
#12. 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
#13. The average person's ear weighs what you are, not what you were.
Francis Quarles
#14. If opinion hath lighted the lamp of thy name, endeavor to encourage it with thy own oil, lest it go out and stink; the chronical disease of Popularity is shame; if thou be once up, beware; from fame to infamy is a beaten road.
Francis Quarles
#16. 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
#18. 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
#19. A despairing heart is the true prophet of approaching evil; his actions may weave the webs of Fortune, but not break them.
Francis Quarles
#20. The light of the understanding, humility kindleth and pride covereth.
Francis Quarles
#21. Flatter not thyself in thy faith in God if thou hast not charity for thy neighbor.
Francis Quarles
#22. Blessedness is promised to the peacemaker, not to the conqueror.
Francis Quarles
#23. As all things eternal and primordial reappear, so all things mortal return to the earth. Honor, old age, probity, justice, constance, virtue, and gentleness are all gathered into the cold tomb.
Francis Quarles
#24. Charity is a naked child, giving honey to a bee without wings.
Francis Quarles
#25. Our God and Souldiers we alike adore,Evn at the Brink of danger; not before:After deliverance, both alike required;Our Gods forgotten, and our Souldiers slighted.
Francis Quarles
#26. No man's condition is so base as his;
None more accurs'd than he; for man esteems
Him hateful, 'cause he seems not what he is;
God hates him, 'cause he is not what he seems;
What grief is absent, or what mischief can
Be added to the hate of God and man?
Francis Quarles
#27. They who cannot be induced to fear for love will never be enforced to love for fear. Love opens the heart, fear shuts it; that encourages, this compels; and victory meets encouragement, but flees compulsion.
Francis Quarles
#28. Before thou reprehend another, take heed thou art not culpable in what thou goest about to reprehend. He that cleanses a blot with blotted fingers makes a greater blur.
Francis Quarles
#29. If God send thee a cross, take it up willingly and follow him. Use it wisely, lest it be unprofitable. Bear it patiently, lest it be intolerable. If it be light, slight it not. If it be heavy, murmur not. After the cross is the crown.
Francis Quarles
#30. He that gives all, though but little, gives much; because God looks not to the quantity of the gift, but to the quality of the givers.
Francis Quarles
#31. Meditation is the life of the soul: Action, the soul of meditation; and honor the reward of action.
Francis Quarles
#32. If you desire to be magnanimous, undertake nothing rashly, and fear nothing thou undertakest; fear nothing but infamy; dare anything but injury; the measure of magnanimity is neither to be rash nor timorous.
Francis Quarles
#33. The strong desires of man's insatiate breast may stand possess'd Of all that earth can give; but earth can give no rest.
Francis Quarles
#34. Tis not, to cry God mercy, or to sit
And droop, or to confess that thou hast fail'd:
'Tis to bewail the sins thou didst commit:
And not commit those sins thou hast bewail' d.
He that bewails and not forsakes them too;
Confesses rather what he means to do.
Francis Quarles
#35. Borrow neither money nor time from your neighbor; both are of equal value.
Francis Quarles
#36. Take heed thou trust not the deceitful lap Of wanton Dalilah; the world's a trap.
Francis Quarles
#37. Be very circumspect in the choice of thy company. In the society of thine equals thou shalt enjoy more pleasure; in the society of thy superiors thou shalt find more profit. To be the best in the company is the way to grow worse; the best means to grow better is to be the worst there.
Francis Quarles
#38. Let the fear of danger be a spur to prevent it; he that fears not, gives advantage to the danger.
Francis Quarles
#39. He that hath promised pardon on our repentance hat not promised life till we repent.
Francis Quarles
#40. A lamb appears a lion, and we fear Each bush we see's a bear.
Francis Quarles
#41. Money is both the generation and corruption of purchased honor; honor is both the child and slave of potent money: the credit which honor hath lost, money hath found. When honor grew mercenary, money grew honorable. The way to be truly noble is to contemn both.
Francis Quarles
#42. 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
#43. That action is not warrantable which either fears to ask the divine blessing on its performance, or having succeeded, does not come with thanksgiving to God for its success.
Francis Quarles
#44. The world is deceitful; her end is doubtful, her conclusion is horrible, her judge terrible, and her judgment is intolerable.
Francis Quarles
#45. In all thy actions think God sees thee; and in all His actions labor to see Him; that will make thee fear Him; this will move thee to love Him; the fear of God is the beginning of knowledge, and the knowledge of God is the perfection of love.
Francis Quarles
#46. O lust, thou infernal fire, whose fuel is gluttony; whose flame is pride, whose sparkles are wanton words; whose smoke is infamy; whose ashes are uncleanness; whose end is hell.
Francis Quarles
#47. Be not too rash in the breaking of an inconvenient custom; as it was gotten, so leave it by degrees. Danger attends upon too sudden alterations; he that pulls down a bad building by the great may be ruined by the fall, but he that takes it down brick by brick may live to build a better.
Francis Quarles
#48. Rather do what is nothing to the purpose than be idle; that the devil may find thee doing. The bird that sits is easily shot, when fliers scape the fowler. Idleness is the Dead Sea that swallows all the virtues, and the self-made sepulchre of a living man.
Francis Quarles
#49. Beware of him that is slow to anger; for when it is long coming, it is the stronger when it comes, and the longer kept. Abused patience turns to fury.
Francis Quarles
#50. Let the words of a virgin, though in a good cause, and to as good purpose, be neither violent, many, nor first, nor last; it is less shame for a virgin to be lost in a blushing silence than to be found in a bold eloquence.
Francis Quarles
#51. In thy apparel avoid singularity, profuseness, and gaudiness. Be not too early in the fashion, nor too late. Decency is half way between affectation and neglect. The body is the shell of the soul, apparel is the husk of that shell; the husk often tells you what the kernel is.
Francis Quarles
#52. In giving of thy alms, inquire not so much into the person, as his necessity. God looks not so much upon the merits of him that requires, as into the manner of him that relieves; if the man deserve not, thou hast given it to humanity.
Francis Quarles
#53. So use prosperity, that adversity may not abuse thee: if in the one, security admits no fears, in the other, despair will afford no hopes; he that in prosperity can foretell a danger can in adversity foresee deliverance.
Francis Quarles
#54. Physicians, of all men, are most happy; whatever good success soever they have, the world proclaimeth; and what faults they commit, the earth covereth.
Francis Quarles
#55. The heart is a small thing, but desireth great matters. It is not sufficient for a kite's dinner, yet the whole world is not sufficient for it.
Francis Quarles
#56. 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
#57. Flatter not thyself in thy faith to God, if thou wantest charity for thy neighbor; and think not thou halt charity for thy neighbor, if thou wantest faith to God; where they are not both together, they are both wanting; they are both dead, if once divided.
Francis Quarles
#58. Luxury is an enticing pleasure, a bastard mirth, which hath honey in her mouth, gall in her heart, and a sting in her tail.
Francis Quarles
#59. Even such is man, whose glory lendsHis life a blaze or two, and ends.
Francis Quarles
#61. 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
#62. What money creates, money preserves: if thy wealth decays, thy honor dies; it is but a slippery happiness which fortunes can give, and frowns can take; and not worth the owning which a night's fire can melt, or a rough sea can drown.
Francis Quarles
#63. If thou wouldst be justified, acknowledge thine injustice. He that confesses his sin, begins his journey toward salvation. He that is sorry for it, mends his pace. He that forsakes it, is at his journey's end.
Francis Quarles
#64. Hath any wounded thee with injuries? Meet them with patience. Hasty words rankle the wound; soft language dresses it.
Francis Quarles
#67. Reason can discover things only near,
sees nothing that's above her.
Francis Quarles
#68. 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
#69. To fear death is the way to live long; to lie afraid of death is to be long a dying.
Francis Quarles
#70. 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
#72. And what's a life? - a weary pilgrimage, Whose glory in one day doth fill the stage With childhood, manhood, and decrepit age.
Francis Quarles
#73. Virtue is nothing but an act of loving that which is to be beloved, and that act is prudence, from whence not to be removed by constraint is fortitude; not to be allured by enticements is temperance; not to be diverted by pride is justice.
Francis Quarles
#76. If thou desire to be held wise, be so wise as to hold thy tongue.
Francis Quarles
#77. If thou neglectest thy love to thy neighbor, in vain thou professest thy love to God; for by thy love to God, the love to thy neighbor is begotten, and by the love to thy neighbor thy love to God is nourished.
Francis Quarles
#78. Gold is Caesar's treasure, man is God's; thy gold hath Caesar's image, and thou hast God's.
Francis Quarles
#80. Immortal life is something to be earned, By slow self-conquest, comradeship with Pain, And patient seeking after higher truths.
Francis Quarles
#81. Temper your enjoyments with prudence, lest there be written on your heart that fearful word 'satiety.'
Francis Quarles
#83. If thou wouldst preserve a sound body, use fasting and walking; if a healthful soul, fasting and praying. Walking exercises the body; praying exercises the soul; fasting cleanses both.
Francis Quarles
#84. 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
#85. Put off thy cares with thy clothes; so shall thy rest strengthen thy labor, and so thy labor sweeten thy rest.
Francis Quarles
#87. Pleasures bring effeminacy, and effeminacy foreruns ruin; such conquests, without blood or sweat, sufficiently do revenge themselves upon their intemperate conquerors.
Francis Quarles
#88. 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
#90. What treasures here do Mammon's sons behold! Yet know that all that which glitters is not gold.
Francis Quarles
#91. Make philosophy thy journey, theology thy journey's end: philosophy is a pleasant way, but dangerous to him that either tires or retires; in this journey it is safe neither to loiter nor to rest, till thou hast attained thy journey's end; he that sits down a philosopher rises up an atheist.
Francis Quarles
#94. That friendship will not continue to the end which is begun for an end.
Francis Quarles
#95. Let the greatest part of the news thou hearest be the least part of what thou believest, lest the greater part of what thou believest be the least part of what is true.
Francis Quarles
#96. Even as the needle that directs the hour,
(Touched with the loadstone) by the secret power
Of hidden Nature, points upon the pole;
Even so the wavering powers of my soul,
Touch'd by the virtue of Thy spirit, flee
From what is earth, and point alone to Thee.
Francis Quarles
#97. Hath any wronged thee? be bravely revenged; slight it, and the work is begun; forgive it, and it is finished; he is below himself that is not above an injury.
Francis Quarles
#100. It lies in the power of man, either permissively to hasten, or actively to shorten, but not to lengthen or extend the limits of his natural life. He only (if any) hath the art to lengthen out his taper that puts it to the best advantage.
Francis Quarles
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
