JOSEPH HALL

We must first pray, that God would make us wise; before we can wish, he would make us happy.

He is a very humble man, that thinks not himself better than some others.

Let me know myself; let others guess at me.

What fools are we, to be besotted with the love of our own trouble, and to hate our liberty and rest!

A reputation once broken may possibly be repaired, but the world will always keep their eyes on the spot where the crack was.

Death borders upon our birth, and our cradle stands in the grave.

Perfection is the child of time.

He is great enough that is his own master.

Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl chain of all virtues.

A man's opinion is in others; his being is in himself.

And, if I were so low that I accounted myself the worst of all, yet some would account themselves in worse case.

Let others either envy or pity me; I care not, so long as I enjoy myself.

FLATTERY is nothing, but false friendship, fawning hypocrisy, dishonest civility, base merchandise of words…

He hates sin more for the indignity of it than the danger.

Virtue is not loved enough, because she is not seen; and vice loseth much detestation, because her ugliness is secret

That which the French proverb hath of sickness is true of all evils, that they come on horseback, and go away on foot; we have often seen a sudden fall or one meal's surfeit hath stuck by many to their graves; whereas pleasures come like oxen, slow, and heavily, and go away like post-horses, upon the spur.

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

It is of no small commendation to manage a little well. To live well in abundance is the praise of the estate, not of the person. I will study more how to give a good account of my little, than how to make it more.

[W]e all lie down in our bed of earth as sure to wake as ever we can be to shut our eyes.

Sorrows, because they are lingering guests, I will entertain but moderately, knowing that the more they are made of the longer they will continue: and for pleasures, because they stay not, and do but call to drink at my door, I will use them as passengers with slight respect. He is his own best friend that makes the least of both of them.

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.

I have seldom seen much ostentation and much learning met together. The sun, rising and declining, makes long shadows; at mid day, when he is highest, none at all.

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.

It is not sin that kills the soul, but impenitence.

There would not be so many open mouths if there were not so many open ears.