Jane Taylor's Quotes

Though man a thinking being is defined, Few use the grand prerogative of mind. How few think justly of the thinking few! How many never think, who think they do!

Who ran to help me when I fell, And would some pretty story tell, Or kiss the place to make it well? My mother.

No man is poor who does not think himself so. But if in a full fortune with impatience he desires more, he proclaims his wants and his beggarly condition.

Love is friendship set on fire.

Revenge... is like a rolling stone, which, when a man hath forced up a hill, will return upon him with a greater violence, and break those bones whose sinews gave it motion.

He that loves not his wife and children feeds a lioness at home, and broods a nest of sorrows.

Meditation is the tongue of the soul and the language of our spirit.

It is impossible to make people understand their ignorance, for it requires knowledge to perceive it; and, therefore, he that can perceive it hath it not.

A celibate, like the fly in the heart of an apple, dwells in a perpetual sweetness, but sits alone, and is confined and dies in singularity.

A religion without mystery must be a religion without God.

Secrecy is the chastity of friendship.

If anger proceeds from a great cause, it turns to fury; if from a small cause, it is peevishness; and so is always either terrible or ridiculous.

The best theology is rather a divine life than a divine knowledge.

Conscience in most men, is but the anticipation of the opinions of others.

Dive on them and squash them if you must.

God hath given to man a short time here upon earth, and yet upon this short time eternity depends.

He that is proud of riches is a fool. For if he is exalted above his neighbors because he has more gold, how much inferior is he to a gold mine.

To be proud of learning is the greatest ignorance.

When you lie down with a short prayer, commit yourself into the hands of your Creator; and when you have done so, trust Him with yourself, as you must do when you are dying.

Curiosity is the direct incontinency of the spirit.

Every act of virtue is an ingredient unto reward.

Habits are the daughters of action, but then they nurse their mother, and produce daughters after her image, but far more beautiful and prosperous.

He that does a base thing in zeal for his friend burns the golden thread that ties their hearts together.

Know that you are your greatest enemy, but also your greatest friend.

Marriage is the mother of the world. It preserves kingdoms, and fills cities and churches, and heaven itself.

Men are apt to prefer a prosperous error to an afflicted truth.