108 Quotes by 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.

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.

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.

The ear and the eye are the mind's receivers; but the tongue is only busy in expending the treasures received. It, therefore, the revenues of the mind be uttered as fast or faster than they are received, it must needs be bare, and can never lay up for purchase.

Heaven hath many tongues to talk of it, more eyes to behold it, but few hearts that rightly affect it.

As the most generous vine, if it is not pruned, runs out into many superfluous stems, and grows at last weak and fruitless; so dote the best man, if he be not cut short of his desires and pruned with afflictions. If it be painful to bleed, it is worse to wither. Let me be pruned, that I may grow, rather than be cut up to burn.

Try to be of some use to others.

Even the best things ill used become evils; and, contrarily, the worst things used well prove good.

The malcontent is neither well, full nor fasting; and though he abounds with complaints, yet nothing dislikes him but the present; for what he condemns while it was, once passed, he magnifies and strives to recall it out of the jaw of time. What he hath he seeth not, his eyes are so taken up with what he wants; and what he sees he careth not for, because be cares so much for that which is not.