290 Thomas Fuller Quotes

Ingratitude is the abridgment of all baseness; a fault never found unattended with other viciousness.

With foxes we must play the fox.

If thou would'st be borne with, then bear with others.

Deceive not thyself by overexpecting happiness in the married estate. Remember the nightingales which sing only some months in the spring, but commonly are silent when they have hatched their eggs.

If thou art a master, be sometimes blind, if a servant, sometimes deaf.

Dwell not too long upon sports; for as they refresh a man that is weary, so they weary a man that is refreshed.

Spill not the morning (the quintessence of the day!) in recreations, for sleep is a recreation. Add not, therefore, sauce to sauce. Pastime, like wine, is poison in the morning. It is then good husbandry to sow the head, which hath lain fallow all night, with some serious work.

Though bachelors be the strongest stakes, married men are the best binders, in the hedge of the commonwealth.

Nature teaches us to love our friends, but religion our enemies.

What cannot be altered must be borne, not blamed.

Men never think their fortunes too great, nor their wit too little.

The Golden Age was never the present Age.

Riches are long in getting with much pains, hard in keeping with much care, quick in losing with more sorrow.

Gravity is the ballast of the soul, which keeps the mind steady.

If an ass goes traveling he will not come home a horse.

Haste and rashness are storms and tempests, breaking and wrecking business; but nimbleness is a full fair wind blowing it with speed to the haven.

With devotion's visage and pious action we do sugar o'er the devil himself.

He will be immortal who liveth till he be stoned by one without fault.

Those who are surly and imperious to their inferiors are generally humble, flattering, and cringing to their superiors.

Soft words are hard arguments.

Choose a wife rather by your ear than your eye.

He is idle that might be better employed.

Prospect is often better than possession.

If it were not for hopes, the heart would break.

We shall never have friends if we expect to find them without fault.

Fame sometimes hath created something of nothing.

Prescribe no positive laws to thy will; for thou mayest be forced tomorrow to drink the same water thou despisest today.

Most marvelous and enviable is that fecundity of fancy which can adorn whatever it touches, which can invest naked fact and dry reasoning with unlooked for beauty, make flowers bloom even on the brow of the precipice, and turn even the rock itself into moss and lichens. This faculty is most important for the vivid and attractive exhibition of truth to the minds of men.

He is not poor that hath not much, but he that craves much.

If thou wouldst please the ladies, thou must endeavor to make them pleased with themselves.

The great end of life is not knowledge, but action.

None can pray well but he that lives well.

Often the cockloft is empty in those whom nature hath built many stories high.

Love, the itch, and a cough cannot be hid.

It is much better to have your gold in the hand than in the heart.

As the sword of the best tempered metal is most flexible, so the truly generous are most pliant and courteous in their behavior to their inferiors.

If you run after two hares, you will catch neither.

Thou oughtest to be nice, even to superstition, in keeping thy promises, and therefore equally cautious in making them.

God send me a friend that will tell me of my faults.

The good wife is none of our dainty dames, who love to appear in a variety of suits every day new; as if a gown, like a stratagem in war, were to be used but once. But our good wife sets up a sail according to the keel of her husband's estate; and, if of high parentage, she doth not so remember what she was by birth, that she forgets what she is by match.

Good counsels observed, are chains to grace, which, neglected, prove halters to strange, undutiful children.

Every tub must stand on its own bottom.

All the while that thou livest ill, thou hast the trouble, distraction, and inconveniences of life, but not the sweet and true use of it.

Contentment consists not in adding more fuel, but in taking away some fire.

Bad excuses are worse than none.

He that flings dirt at another dirtieth himself most.

I will not meddle with that which I cannot mend.

An index is a necessary implement, without which a large author is but a labyrinth without a clue to direct the readers within.

My son is my son till he have got him a wife, But my daughter's my daughter all the days of her life.

A little skill in antiquity inclines a man to Popery; but depth in that study brings him about again to our religion.

Better be alone than in bad company.

Poetry is music in words: and music is poetry in sound: both excellent sauce, but those have lived and died poor, who made them their meat.

A small demerit extinguishes a long service.

The Devil himself is good when he is pleased.

Policy consists in serving God in such a manner as not to offend the devil.

Many hope the tree may be felled that they may gather chips by the fall.

Let friendship creep gently to a height; if it rushes to it, it may soon run itself out of breath.

Memory depends very much on the perspicuity, regularity, and order of our thoughts. Many complain of the want of memory, when the defect is in their judgment; and others, by grasping at all, retain nothing.

Our eyes, when gazing on sinful objects, are out of their calling, and out of God's keeping.

The devil lies brooding in the miser's chest.

Be you never so high, the law is above you.

Generosity, wrong placed, becometh a vice; a princely mind will undo a private family.

Charity begins at home, but should not end there.

God makes, and apparel shapes: but it's money that finishes the man.

A gift, with a kind countenance, is a double present.

Trust thyself only, and another shall not betray thee.

Keep thy eyes wide open before marriage; and half shut afterward.

There is a scarcity of friendship, but not of friends.

Praise not people to their faces, to the end that they may pay thee in the same coin. This is so thin a cobweb, that it may with little difficulty be seen through; 'tis rarely strong enough to catch flies of any considerable magnitude.

Slight small injuries and they will become none at all.

Make not a bosom friend of a melancholy soul: he'll be sure to aggravate thy adversity, and lessen thy prosperity. He goes always heavy loaded; and thou must bear half. He's never in a good humor; and may easily get into a bad one, and fall out with thee.

Memory is the treasure house of the mind wherein the monuments thereof are kept and preserved.

He that has a great nose, thinks everybody is speaking of it.

Don't let your will roar when your power only whispers.

First get an absolute conquest over thyself, and then thou wilt easily govern thy wife.

To smell a turf of fresh earth is wholesome for the body; no less are thoughts of mortality cordial to the soul.

One that will not plead that cause wherein his tongue must be confuted by his conscience.

Tis skill, not strength, that governs a ship.

The frost is God's plough which he drives through every inch of ground in the world, opening each clod, and pulverizing the whole.

Get the facts, or the facts will get you. And when you get em, get em right, or they will get you wrong.

A fox should not be on the jury at a goose's trial.

A conservative believes nothing should be done for the first time.

It is good to make a jest, but not to make a trade of jesting.

He lives long that lives well; and time misspent is not lived, but lost. God is better than his promise if he takes from him a long lease, and gives him a free hold of a better value.

A good life fears not life, nor death.

Cheat me in the price but not in the goods.

There are heads sometimes so little, that there is no room for wit, sometimes so long that there is no wit for so much room.

Today is yesterday's pupil.

Cruelty is a tyrant that's always attended with fear.

If you would pass for more than your value, say little. It is easier to look wise than to talk wisely.

A good garden may have some weeds.

Music is nothing else but wild sounds civilized into time and tune.

There is a great difference between painting a face and not washing it.

Pride will spit in pride's face.

A man surprised is half beaten.

He is rich that is satisfied.

A wounded conscience is able to unparadise paradise itself.

Learning makes a man fit company for himself.

All things are difficult before they are easy.

A book that is shut is but a block.

There is no banquet but some dislike something in it.

We ought to see far enough into a hypocrite to see even his sincerity.

Thou mayst as well expect to grow stronger by always eating as wiser by always reading. Too much overcharges nature, and turns more into disease than nourishment. 'Tis thought and digestion which make books serviceable, and give health and vigor to the mind.

Be a friend to thyself, and others will be so too.

He is poor indeed that can promise nothing.

Marshall thy notions into a handsome method. One will carry twice more weight packed up in bundles, than when it lies flapping and hanging about his shoulders.

Judge of thine improvement, not by what thou speakest or writest, but by the firmness of thy mind, and the government of thy passions and affections.

One may miss the mark by aiming too high, as too low.

Jars concealed are half reconciled; but if generally known, it is a double task to stop the breach at home and men's mouths abroad.

Thou must content thyself to see the world imperfect as it is. Thou wilt never have any quiet if thou vexest thyself because thou canst not bring mankind to that exact notion of things and rule of life which thou hast formed in thy own mind.

A good friend is my nearest relation.

Scalded cats fear even cold water.

A man is not good or bad for one action.

Many favors which God gives us ravel out for want of hemming through our unthankfulness; for though prayer purchases blessings, giving praise keeps the quiet possession of them.

"They say so" is half a lie.

Reward a good servant well, and rather get quit of a bad one than disquiet thyself with him.

Heat of passion makes our souls to chap, and the devil creeps in at the crannies.

Misfortunes tell us what fortune is.

All the molestations of marriage are abundantly recompensed with the other comforts which God bestoweth on them who make a wise choice of a wife.

Care and diligence bring luck.

No man can be happy without a friend, nor be sure of his friend till he is unhappy.

Comparison, more than reality, makes men happy or wretched.

Command thy servant advisably with few plain words, fully, freely, and positively, with a grave countenance, and settled carriage: These will procure obedience, gain respect, and maintain authority.

Learning hath gained most by those books by which the printers have lost.

Better fare hard with good men than feast with bad.

In conversation use some, but not too much ceremony; it teaches others to be courteous, too. Demeanors are commonly paid back in their own coin.

The lion is not so fierce as painted.

Make no vows to perform this or that; it shows no great strength, and makes thee ride behind thyself.

Do not in an instant what an age cannot recompense.

A lie has no leg, but a scandal has wings.

A drinker has a hole under his nose that all his money runs into.

When our Savior drove the sheep and oxen out of the temple, He did not drive them into His own pasture; nor sweep the coin into His own pockets, when He overturned the table of the money-changers.

A good schoolmaster minces his precepts for children to swallow, hanging clogs on the nimbleness of his own soul, that his scholars may go along with him.

We are born crying, live complaining, and die disappointed.

If you command wisely, you'll be obeyed cheerfully.

The Pyramids themselves, doting with age, have forgotten the names of their founders.

An ounce of cheerfulness is worth a pound of sadness to serve God with.

Many come to bring their clothes to church rather than themselves.

Great and good are seldom the same man.

If your desires be endless, your cares and fears will be so, too.

Reasons are the pillars of the fabric of a sermon, but similitudes are the windows which give the best light. The faithful minister avoids such stories as may suggest bad thoughts to the auditors, and will not use a light comparison to make thereof a grave application, for fear lest his poison go further than his antidote.

Many have been the wise speeches of fools, though not so many as the foolish speeches of wise men.

Place not thy amendment only in increasing thy devotion, but in bettering thy life. It is the damning hypocrisy of this age that it slights all good morality, and spends its zeal in matters of ceremony, and a form of godliness without the power of it.

A good marksman may miss.

He that knows nothing will believe anything.

He that falls into sin is a man, that grieves at it is a saint, that boasteth of it is a devil; yet some glory in that shame, counting the stains of sin the best complexion of their souls.

One cloud is enough to eclipse all the sun.

A stumble may prevent a fall.

Rashness is the faithful but unhappy parent of misfortune.

Make not thy friends too cheap to thee, nor thyself to thy friend.

A willful falsehood told is a cripple, not able to stand by itself without another to support it. It is easy to tell a lie, but hard to tell only one lie.

Better give a shilling than lend and lose half a crown.

There is a Spanish proverb, that one who would grow rich must buy of those who go to be executed, as not caring how cheap they sell; and sell to those who go to be married, as not caring how dear they buy.

Nothing is easy to the unwilling.

A wise man may look ridiculous in the company of fools.

The blush is nature's alarm at the approach of sin, and her testimony to the dignity of virtue.

Though "the words of the wise be as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies," yet their examples are the hammer to drive them in to take the deeper hold. A father that whipped his son for swearing, and swore himself whilst he whipped him, did more harm by his example than good by his correction.

Friendship that flames goes out in a flash.

The pleasures of the rich are bought with the tears of the poor.

He is happy that knoweth not himself to be otherwise.

Zeal without knowledge is fire without light.

A name is a kind of face whereby one is known.

No man who is fit to live need fear to die. To us here, death is the most terrible thing we know. But when we have tasted its reality it will mean to us birth, deliverance, a new creation of ourselves. It will be what health is to the sick man; what home is to the exile; what the loved one given back is to the bereaved. As we draw near to it a solemn gladness should fill our hearts. It is God's great morning lighting up the sky. Our fears are the terror of children in the night. The night with its terrors, its darkness, its feverish dreams, is passing away; and when we awake it will be into the sunlight of God.

Leave not off praying to God: for either praying will make thee leave off sinning; or continuing in sin will make thee desist from praying.

Better break your word than do worse in keeping it.

Let him who expects one class of society to prosper in the highest degree, while the other is in distress, try whether one side of his face can smile while the other is pinched.

Those see nothing but faults that seek for nothing else.

When thou makest presents, let them be of such things as will last long; to the end they may be in some sort immortal, and may frequently refresh the memory of the receiver.

A danger foreseen is half avoided.

Vices are as truly contrary to each other as to virtue.

Take heed of jesting; many have been ruined by it. It is hard to jest, and not sometimes jeer too, which often sinks deeper than we intended or expected.

A good horse should be seldom spurred.

Forgetting of a wrong is a mild revenge.

Harmless mirth is the best cordial against the consumption of the spirit; wherefore jesting is not unlawful, if it trespasseth not in quantity, quality, or season.

Conceit not so high an opinion of any one as to be bashful and impotent in their presence.

Venture not to the utmost bounds of even lawful pleasures; the limits of good and evil join.

Great hopes make great men.

Abused patience turns to fury.

The mob has many heads but no brains.

The best way to be rid of bad thoughts in my prayers is not to receive them out of my prayers.

There is mention of a sword turning every way: parallel whereto is the Word of God in a wounded conscience. Man's heart is full of windings, turnings, and doublings, to shift and shun the stroke thereof, if possible: but this sword meets them wheresoever they move; it fetches and finds them out; it haunts and hunts them, forbidding them, during their agony, any entrance into the paradise of one comfortable thought.

If the wicked flourish and thou suffer, be not discouraged; they are fatted for destruction, thou art dieted for health.

Curiosity is a kernel of the forbidden fruit which still sticketh in the throat of a natural man, sometimes to the danger of his choking.

He that's cheated twice by the same man is an accomplice with the cheater.

Better a little fire to warm us than a great one to burn us.

Send your noble blood to market and see what it will bring.

They are rich who have true friends.

It is the glory of the true religion that it inculcates and inspires a spirit of benevolence. It is a religion of charity, which none other ever was. Christ went about doing good; he set the example to his disciples, and they abounded in it.

Never contend with one that is foolish, proud, positive, testy, or with a superior, or a clown, in matter of argument.

The devil gets up to the belfry by the vicar's skirts.

The real difference between men is energy. A strong will, a settled purpose, an invincible determination, can accomplish almost anything; and in this lies the distinction between great men and little men.

Scoff not at the natural defects of any which are not in their power to amend. It is cruel to beat a cripple with his own crutches!

Great is the difference betwixt a man's being frightened at, and humbled for his sins.

Anger is short-lived in a good man.

He that would have fruit must climb the tree.

Every horse thinks its own pack heaviest.

Tombs are the clothes of the dead; a grave is but a plain suit; a rich monument is an embroidered one.

Tis better to suffer wrong than do it.

The more wit the less courage.

Truth is the daughter of God.

They that marry ancient people, merely in expectation to bury them, hang themselves in hope that one will come and cut the halter.

The affections, like conscience, are rather to be led than driven. Those who many where they do not love, will be likely to love where they do not marry.

Seeing's believing, but feeling's the truth.

There is nothing that so much gratifies an ill tongue as when it finds an angry heart.

Riches may leave us while we live, we must leave them when we die.

We could be cowards, if we had courage enough.

Poor men's reasons are not heard.

Ethics make one's soul mannerly and wise, but logic is the armory of reason, furnished with all offensive and defensive weapons.

He that hopes no good fears no ill.

The greatest man living may stand in need of the meanest, as much as the meanest does of him.

Remember. O my soul, the fig tree was charged, not with bearing noxious fruit, but no fruit.

He's my friend that speaks well of me behind my back.

There is more pleasure in loving than in being beloved.

Compliments cost nothing, yet many pay dear for them.

Sickness is felt, but health not at all.

Despair gives courage to a coward.

It is more difficult to praise rightly than to blame.

Even doubtful accusations leave a stain behind them.

The number of malefactors authorizes not the crime.

Anger is one of the sinews of the soul. He who wants it hath a maimed mind.

We can live without our friends but not without our neighbors.

How weak a thing is gentility, if it wants virtue!

Hold not conference, debate, or reasoning with any lust; 'tis but a preparatory for thy admission of it. The way is at the very first flatly to deny it.

We have all forgot more than we remember.

A fool's paradise is a wise man's hell!

'Tis better that thou be rather something sparing, than very liberal, to even a good servant; for as he grows full, he inclines either to be idle, or to leave thee: and if he should at any time murmur, thou mayest govern him by a seasonable reward.

A man's best fortune, or his worst, is his wife.

Good is not good, where better is expected.

Deceive not thyself by over-expecting happiness in the married state. Look not therein for contentment greater than God will give, or a creature in this world can receive, namely, to be free from all inconveniences. Marriage is not like the hill of Olympus, wholly clear, without clouds.

Vows made in storms are forgotten in calm.

If thou desirest ease, in the first place take care of the ease of thy mind; for that will make all other sufferings easy. But nothing can support a man whose mind is wounded.

A fault, once denied, is twice committed.

Be the business never so painful, you may have it done for money.

Riches enlarge, rather than satisfy appetites.

A wise man turns chance into good fortune.

Old foxes want no tutors.

If the master takes no account of his servants, they will make small account of him, and care not what they spend, who are never brought to an audit.

In fair weather prepare for foul.

The weakest and most timorous are the most revengeful and implacable.