John Tillotson Quotes

Ignorance and inconsideration are the two great causes of the ruin of mankind.

A good word is an easy obligation; but not to speak ill requires only our silence, which costs us nothing.

Of all parts of wisdom the practice is the best.

Was ever any wicked man free from the stings of a guilty conscience?

The art of using deceit and cunning grow continually weaker and less effective to the user.

It is pleasant to be virtuous and good, because that is to excel many others; it is pleasant to grow better, because that is to excel ourselves; it is pleasant to mortify and subdue our lusts, because that is victory; it is pleasant to command our appetites and passions, and to keep them in due order within the bounds of reason and religion, because this is empire.

Sincerity is to speak as we think, to do as we pretend and profess, to perform and make good what we promise, and really to be what we would seem and appear to be.

If a man were only to deal in the world for a day, and should never have occasion to converse more with mankind, never more need their good opinion or good word, it were then no great matter (speaking as to the concernments of this world), if a man spent his reputation all at once, and ventured it at one throw; but if he be to continue in the world, and would have the advantage of conversation while he is in it, let him make use of truth and sincerity in all his words and actions; for nothing but this will last and hold out to the end.

Malice and hatred are very fretting and vexatious, and apt to make our minds sore and uneasy; but he that can moderate these affections will find ease in his mind.

True wisdom is a thing very extraordinary. Happy are they that have it: and next to them, not those many that think they have it, but those few that are sensible of their own defects and imperfections, and know that they have it not.

When we have practiced good actions awhile, they become easy; when they are easy, we take pleasure in them; when they please us, we do them frequently; and then, by frequency of act, they grow into a habit.

Our belief or disbelief of a thing does not alter the nature of the thing.

Integrity gains strength by use.

Convulsive anger storms at large; or pale And silent, settles into full revenge.

Though all afflictions are evils in themselves, yet they are good for us, because they discover to us our disease and tend to our cure.

Zeal is fit for wise men, but flourishes chiefly among fools.

Wisdom and understanding are synonymous words; they consist of two propositions, which are not distinct in sense, but one and the same thing variously expressed.

If people would but provide for eternity with the same solicitude and real care as they do for this life, they could not fail of heaven.

The angriest person in a controversy is the one most liable to be in the wrong.

Abstinence is many times very helpful to the end of religion.

Truth is the shortest and nearest way to our end, carrying us thither in a straight line.

When a man has once forfeited the reputation of his integrity, he is set fast, and nothing will then serve his turn, neither truth nor falsehood.

The gospel chargeth us with piety towards God, and justice and charity to men, and temperance and chastity in reference to ourselves.

Surely modesty never hurt any cause; and the confidence of man seems to me to be much like the wrath of man.

No man's body is as strong as his appetites, but Heaven has corrected the boundlessness of his voluptuous desires by stinting his strength and contracting his capacities.

Take away God and religion, and men live to no purpose, without proposing any worthy end of life to themselves.

Piety and virtue are not only delightful for the present, but they leave peace and contentment behind them.

There are two restraints which God has laid upon human nature, shame and fear; shame is the weaker, and has place only in those in whom there are some reminders of virtue.

Is not he imprudent, who, seeing the tide making haste towards him apace, will sleep till the sea overwhelms him?

A little wit and a great deal of ill-nature will furnish a man for satire; but the greatest instance of wit is to commend well.

Sincerity is like traveling on a plain, beaten road, which commonly brings a man sooner to his journey's end than by-ways, in which men often lose themselves.

Whatever convenience may be thought to be in falsehood and dissimulation, it is soon over; but the inconvenience of it is perpetual, because it brings a man under everlasting jealousy and suspicion, so that he is not believed when he speaks the truth, nor trusted when perhaps he means honestly.

To be able to bear provocation is an argument of great reason, and to forgive it of a great mind.

Fear is that passion which hath the greatest power over us, and by which God and His laws take the surest hold of us.

There is one way whereby we may secure our riches, and make sure friends to ourselves of them,--by laying them out in charity.

Religion in a magistrate strengthens his authority, because it procures veneration, and gains a reputation to it. In all the affairs of this world, so much reputation is in reality so much power.

Some things will not bear much zeal; and the more earnest we are about them, the less we recommend ourselves to the approbation of sober and considerate men.

Whether religion be true or false, it must be necessarily granted to be the only wise principle and safe hypothesis for a man to live and die by.

If the show of any thing be good for any thing, I am sure sincerity is better; for why does any man dissemble, or seem to be that which he is not, but because he thinks it good to have such a quality as he pretends to?

If our souls be immortal, this makes amends for the frailties of life and the sufferings of this state.

Of all parts of wisdom, the practice is the best. Socrates was esteemed the wisest man of his time because he turned his acquired knowledge into morality, and aimed at goodness more than greatness.

It is hard to personate and act a part long; for where Truth is not the bottom, Nature will always be endeavoring to return, and will peep and betray herself one time or other.

Virtue and vice are not arbitrary things; but there is a natural and eternal reason for goodness and virtue, and against vice and wickedness.

Wealth and riches, that is, an estate above what sufficeth our real occasions and necessities, is in no other sense a 'blessing' than as it is an opportunity put into our hands, by the providence of God, of doing more good.

He who is sincere hath the easiest task in the world, for, truth being always consistent with itself, he is put to no trouble about his words and actions; it is like traveling in a plain road, which is sure to bring you to your journey's end better than byways in which many lose themselves.

Every Christian is endued with a power whereby he is enabled to resist temptations.

Men expect that religion should cost them no pains, that happiness should drop into their laps without any design and endeavor on their part, and that, after they have done what they please while they live, God should snatch them up to heaven when they die. But though the commandments of God be not grievous, yet it is fit to let men know that they are not thus easy.

Truth is always consistent with itself, and needs nothing to help it out. It is always near at hand, and sits upon our lips, and is ready to drop out before we are aware; whereas a lie is troublesome, and sets a man's invention upon the rack; and one trick needs a great many more to make it good.

The covetous man heaps up riches, not to enjoy them, but to have them; and starves himself in the midst of plenty, and most unnaturally cheats and robs himself of that which is his own; and makes a hard shift, to be as poor and miserable with a great estate, as any man can be without it.

Of some calamity we can have no relief but from God alone; and what would men do, in such a case if it were not for God?