Owen Feltham Quotes
An English writer, author of a book entitled Resolves, Divine, Moral, and Political (c. 1620), containing 146 short essays. It had great popularity in its day.
(1602 - 1668)
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A consciousness of inward knowledge gives confidence to the outward behavior, which, of all things, is the best to grace a man in his carriage.
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A sentence well couched takes both the sense and the understanding. - I love not those cart-rope speeches that are longer than the memory of man can measure.
[Speech]
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A talkative fellow may be compared to an unbraced drum, which beats a wise man out of his wits. - Loquacity is ever running, and almost incurable.
[Loquacity]
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All earthly delights are sweeter in expectation than in enjoyment; but all spiritual pleasures more in fruition than in expectation.
[Anticipation]
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By gambling we lose both our time and treasure, two things most precious to the life of man.
[Gambling]
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Discontent is like ink poured into water, which fills the whole fountain full of blackness. It casts a cloud over the mind, and renders it more occupied about the evil which disquiets than about the means of removing it.
[Discontent]
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Discontents are sometimes the better part of our life. - I know not which is the most useful. - Joy I may choose for pleasure; but adversities are the best for profit; and sometimes these do so far help me, that I should, without them, want much of the joy I have.
[Discontent]
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Every man should study conciseness in speaking; it is a sign of ignorance not to know that long speeches, though they may please the speaker, are the torture of the hearer.
[Oratory]
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God has made no one absolute. - The rich depend on the poor, as well as the poor on the rich. - The world is but a magnificent building; all the stones are gradually cemented together. - No one subsists by himself alone.
[Dependence]
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Gold is the fool's curtain, which hides all his defects from the world.
[Gold]
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He hath a poor spirit who is not planted above petty wrongs.
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He that despairs degrades the Deity, and seems to intimate that He is insufficient, or not just to his word; in vain hath he read the Scriptures, the world, and man.
[Despair]
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He who always waits upon God, is ready whensoever he calls. - He is a happy man who so lives that death at all times may find him at leisure to die.
[Death]
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He who would be singular in his apparel had need have something superlative to balance that affectation.
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I love the man that is modestly valiant, that stirs not till he most needs, and then to purpose. - A continued patience I commend not.
[Valor]
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If we considered detraction to be bred of envy, and nested only in deficient minds, we should find that the applauding of virtue would win us far more honor than seeking to disparage it. - That would show we loved what we commended, while this tells the world we grudge at what we want ourselves.
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In some dispositions there is such an envious kind of pride that they cannot endure that any but themselves should be set forth for excellent; so that when they hear one justly praised, they will either seek to dismount his virtues, or, if they be like a clear light, they will stab him with a "but" of detraction.
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Irresolution is a worse vice than rashness. He that shoots best may sometimes miss the mark; but he that shoots not at all can never hit it. Irresolution loosens all the joints of a state; like an ague, it shakes not this nor that limb, but all the body is at once in a fit. The irresolute man is lifted from one place to another; so hatcheth nothing, but addles all his actions.
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It is much safer to reconcile an enemy than to conquer him; victory may deprive him of his poison, but reconciliation of his will.
[Enemies]
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It is not fit that every man should travel; it makes a wise man better, and a fool worse.
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