JEREMY TAYLOR, Twenty-Seven Sermons

The thing framed says that nothing framed it; the tongue never made itself to speak, and yet talks against him that did; saying that which is made, is, and that which made it, is not. But this folly is infinite as hell, as much without light or bound as the chaos or the primitive nothing.

JEREMY TAYLOR, Sermon XX, Discourses on Various Subjects

To be proud of learning is the greatest ignorance.

JEREMY TAYLOR, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living

Lust is a captivity of the reason and an enraging of the passions; it wakens every night and rages every day; it desires passionately, and prosecutes violently; it hinders business and distracts counsel; it brings jealousies, and enkindles wars; it sins against the body and weakens the soul; it defiles the temple, and drives the Holy Spirit forth.

JEREMY TAYLOR, Selections from the works of Taylor, Hooker, Barrow, South, Latimer, Brown, Milton, and Bacon

I have seen the sun with a little ray of distant light challenge all the powers of darkness, and without violence and noise, climbing up the hill, hath made night so retire that its memory was lost in the joys and sprightliness of the morning.

JEREMY TAYLOR, "The Faith and Patience of the Saints", Sermons

If we should look under the skirt of the prosperous and prevailing tyrant, we should find, even in the days of his joys, such allays and abatements of his pleasure, as may serve to represent him presently miserable, besides his final infelicities.... And although all tyrants have not imaginative and fantastic consciences, yet all tyrants shall die and come to judgment; and such a man is not to be feared, not at all to be envied. And, in the mean time, can he be said to escape who hath an unquiet conscience, who is already designed for hell, he whom God hates, and the people curse, and who hath an evil name, and against whom all good men pray, and many desire to fight, and all wish him destroyed, and some contrive to do it? Is this a blessed man?

JEREMY TAYLOR, Sermon XXXV, The Sermons of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor

In those rituals which are ministries of grace no man must interpose anything that can alter any part of the institution, or make a change or variety in that which is of divine appointment.

JEREMY TAYLOR, attributed, Day's Collacon

Enjoy the present, whatsoever it be, and be not solicitous about the future.

JEREMY TAYLOR, attributed, Day's Collacon

Modesty is the appendage of sobriety, and is to chastity, to temperance, and to humility as fringes are to a garment.

JEREMY TAYLOR, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living and Dying

Every creature hath instinct.

JEREMY TAYLOR, attributed, Day's Collacon

The death of the righteous is like the descending of ripe and wholesome fruits from a pleasant and florid tree; our senses entire, our limbs unbroken, without horrid tortures, after provision made for our children, with a blessing entailed upon posterity, in the presence of our friends, our dearest relative closing up our eyes and binding our feet, leaving a good name behind us. O let my soul die such a death! for this, in whole or in part, according as God sees it good, is the manner that the righteous die.

JEREMY TAYLOR, The Whole Works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor

The love of gold is a vertiginous pool, sucking all into it to destroy it; it is troubled and uneven, giddy and unsafe, serving no end but its own, and that also in a restless and uneasy motion.

JEREMY TAYLOR, attributed, Day's Collacon

Laughing, if loud, ends with a deep sigh; and all pleasures have a sting in the tail, though they carry beauty in the face.

JEREMY TAYLOR, attributed, Day's Collacon