The essays; or, Counsels civil and moral with A table of the colours of good and evil. Revised, with references and a few notes by T. Markby

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Page 2 - Certainly it is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in Providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.
Page 2 - ... the inquiry of truth, which is the lovemaking, or wooing, of it; the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it; and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it ; is the sovereign good of human nature.
Page 110 - For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels and the plots and marshalling of affairs come best from those that are learned.
Page 54 - It is good also not to try experiments in states, except the necessity be urgent, or the utility evident; and well to beware that it be the reformation that draweth on the change, and not the desire of change that pretendeth the reformation.
Page 119 - Patience and gravity of hearing is an essential part of justice, and an over-speaking judge is no well-tuned cymbal. It is no grace to a judge first to find that which he might have heard in due time from the bar, or to show quickness of conceit in cutting off evidence or counsel too short, or to prevent information by questions, though pertinent.
Page 35 - I had rather believe all the fables in the legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind.
Page 4 - It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other. He that dies in an earnest pursuit, is like one that is wounded in hot blood; who, for the time, scarce feels the hurt; and therefore a mind fixed and bent upon somewhat that is good, doth avert the dolours of death; but, above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is, 'Nunc dimittis' when a man hath obtained worthy ends and expectations.
Page 13 - THE joys of parents are secret, and so are their griefs and fears ; they cannot utter the one, nor they will not utter the other. Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter ; they increase the cares of life, but they mitigate the remembrance of death.
Page 27 - The parts and signs of goodness are many. If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them...
Page 2 - ... of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it ; for these winding and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent, which goeth basely upon the belly and not upon the feet.

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