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Perfection Is Immutable. But For Things Imperfect Change Is The Way To Perfect Them. It Gets The Name Of Wilfulness When It Will Not Admit Of A Lawful Change To The Better. Therefore Constancy Without Knowledge Cannot Be Always Good. In Things Ill It Is Not Virtue, But An Absolute Vice.

-Owen Feltham

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Perfection Is Immutable. But

Owen Feltham

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Perfection Is Immutable. But For Things Imperfect Change Is The Way To Perfect Them. It Gets The Name Of Wilfulness When It Will Not Admit Of A Lawful Change To The Better. Therefore Constancy Without Knowledge Cannot Be Always Good. In Things Ill It Is Not Virtue, But An Absolute Vice.

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It Is A Most Unhappy State To Be At A Distance With God: Man Needs No Greater Infelicity Than To Be Left To Himself.

God Has Made No One Absolute.

Virtue Dwells At The Head Of A River, To Which We Cannot Get But By Rowing Against The Stream.

Take Heed Of A Speedy Professing Friend; Love Is Never Lasting Which Flames Before It Burns.

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.

Negligence Is The Rust Of The Soul That Corrodes Through All Her Best Resolves.

Business Is The Salt Of Life, Which Not Only Gives A Grateful Smack To It, But Dries Up Those Crudities That Would Offend, Preserves From Putrefaction And Drives Off All Those Blowing Flies That Would Corrupt It.

Vice Is A Peripatetic, Always In Progression.

To Go To Law Is For Two Persons To Kindle A Fire, At Their Own Cost, To Warm Others And Singe Themselves To Cinders; And Because They Cannot Agree As To What Is Truth And Equity, They Will Both Agree To Unplume Themselves That Others May Be Decorated With Their Feathers.

Knowledge Is The Treasure Of The Mind, But Discretion Is The Key To It, Without Which It Is Useless. The Practical Part Of Wisdom Is The Best.

A Sentence Well Couched Takes Both The Sense And Understanding. I Love Not Those Cart-rope Speeches That Are Longer Than The Memory Of Man Can Fathom.

How Many Would Die Did Not Hope Sustain Them.

Perfection Is Immutable. But For Things Imperfect, Change Is The Way To Perfect Them.

Imperfect Things

Riches, Though They May Reward Virtues, Yet They Cannot Cause Them; He Is Much More Noble Who Deserves A Benefit Than He Who Bestows One.

Contemplation Is Necessary To Generate An Object, But Action Must Propagate It.

It Is Rare To See A Rich Man Religious; For Religion Preaches Restraint, And Riches Prompt To Unlicensed Freedom.

To Be Gentle Is The Test Of A Lady.

Time Is Like A Ship Which Never Anchors; While I Am On Board, I Had Better Do Those Things That May Profit Me At My Landing, Than Practice Such As Shall Cause My Commitment When I Come Ashore.

Fear, If It Be Not Immoderate, Puts A Guard About Us That Does Watch And Defend Us; But Credulity Keeps Us Naked, And Lays Us Open To All The Sly Assaults Of Ill-intending Men: It Was A Virtue When Man Was In His Innocence; But Since His Fall, It Abuses Those That Own It.

Any Man Shall Speak The Better When He Knows What Others Have Said, And Sometimes The Consciousness Of His Inward Knowledge Gives A Confidence To His Outward Behavior, Which Of All Other Is The Best Thing To Grace A Man In His Carriage.

Of All Trees, I Observe God Hath Chosen The Vine, A Low Plant That Creeps Upon The Helpful Wall; Of All Beasts, The Soft And Patient Lamb; Of All Fowls, The Mild And Guileless Dove. Christ Is The Rose Of The Field, And The Lily Of The Valley. When God Appeared To Moses, It Was Not In The Lofty Cedar Nor The Sturdy Oak Nor The Spreading Palm; But In A Bush, A Humble, Slender, Abject Shrub; As If He Would, By These Elections, Check The Conceited Arrogance Of Man.

Perfection Is Immutable. But For Things Imperfect Change Is The Way To Perfect Them. It Gets The Name Of Wilfulness When It Will Not Admit Of A Lawful Change To The Better. Therefore Constancy Without Knowledge Cannot Be Always Good. In Things Ill It Is Not Virtue, But An Absolute Vice.

There Is No Belittling Worse Than To Over Praise A Man.

When Two Friends Part They Should Lock Up One Another's Secrets, And Interchange Their Keys.

In Business, Three Things Are Necessary: Knowledge, Temper, And Time.

Virtue Is The Truest Liberty.

When I But Hear Her Sing, I Fare Like One That Raised, Holds His Ear To Some Bright Star In The Supremest Round; Through Which, Besides The Light That's Seen There May Be Heard, From Heaven Within, The Rests Of Anthems, That The Angels Sound.

There Is No Detraction Worse Than To Overpraise A Man, For If His Worth Proves Short Of What Report Doth Speak Of Him, His Own Actions Are Ever Giving The Lie To His Honor.

The Boundary Of Man Is Moderation. When Once We Pass That Pale Our Guardian Angel Quits His Charge Of Us.

Promises May Get Friends, But It Is Performance That Must Nurse And Keep Them.

Meditation Is The Soul's Perspective Glass, Whereby, In Her Long Remove, She Discerneth God, As If He Were Nearer At Hand.

The Greatest Results In Life Are Usually Attained By Common Sense And Perseverance.

By Gaming We Lose Both Our Time And Treasure - Two Things Most Precious To The Life Of Man.

Gold Is The Fool's Curtain, Which Hides All His Defects From The World.

Human Life Has Not A Surer Friend, Nor Oftentimes A Greater Enemy, Than Hope. It Is The Miserable Man's God, Which In The Hardest Gripe Of Calamity Never Fails To Yield To Him Beams Of Comfort. It Is The Presumptuous Man's Devil, Which Leads Him A While In A Smooth Way, And Then Suddenly Breaks His Neck.

Reason And Right Give The Quickest Despatch.

Discontent Is Like Ink Poured Into Water, Which Fills The Whole Fountain Full Of Blackness.

Some Are So Uncharitable As To Think All Women Bad, And Others Are So Credulous As To Believe They Are All Good. All Will Grant Her Corporeal Frame More Wonderful And More Beautiful Than Man's. And Can We Think God Would Put A Worse Soul Into A Better Body?

It Is Much Safer To Reconcile An Enemy Than To Conquer Him; Victory May Deprive Him Of His Poison, But Reconciliation Of His Will.

The Greatest Results In Life Are Usually Attained By Simple Means And The Exercise Of Ordinary Qualities. These May For The Most Part Be Summed Up In These Two - Common Sense And Perseverance.

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.

Works Without Faith Are Like A Fish Without Water, It Wants The Element It Should Live In. A Building Without A Basis Cannot Stand; Faith Is The Foundation, And Every Good Action Is As A Stone Laid.

Men Are Like Wine,--not Good Before The Lees Of Clownishness Be Settled.

Arrogance Is A Weed Which Grows Upon A Dunghill; It Is From The Rankness Of The Soil That She Has Her Height And Spreadings: Witness, Clowns, Fools, And Fellows, Who From Nothing, Are Lifted Up Some Few Steps On Fortune's Ladder: Where, Seeing The Glorious Representment Of Honour Above Them, They Are So Eager To Embrace It, That They Strive To Leap Thither At Once, And By Over-reaching Themselves In The Way, They Fail Of The End, And Fall.

All Men Will Be Peters In Their Bragging Tongue, And Most Men Will Be Peters In Their Base Denial; But Few Men Will Be Peters In Their Quick Repentance.

He That Despairs Degrades The Deity, And Seems To Intimate That He Is Insufficient, Or Not Just To His Word; And In Vain Hath Read The Scriptures, The World, And Man.

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If Ever I Should Affect Injustice, It Would Be In This, That I Might Do Courtesies And Receive None.

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That Man Is But Of The Lower Part Of The World That Is Not Brought Up To Business And Affairs.

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Virtue Were A Kind Of Misery If Fame Were All The Garland That Crowned Her.

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Honesty Is A Warrant Of Far More Safety Than Fame.

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Zeal Without Humanity Is Like A Ship Without A Rudder, Liable To Be Stranded At Any Moment

There Is No One Subsists By Himself Alone.

Environmental Stewardship

Meditation Is The Soul's Perspective Glass.

We Pick Our Own Sorrows Out Of The Joys Of Other Men, And From Their Sorrows Likewise We Derive Our Joys.

For Converse Among Men, Beautiful Persons Have Less Need Of The Mind's Commending Qualities. Beauty In Itself Is Such A Silent Orator, That It Is Ever Pleading For Respect And Liking, And By The Eyes Of Others Is Ever Sending, To Their Hearts For Love.

No Man Can Expect To Find A Friend Without Faults; Nor Can He Propose Himself To Be So To Another. Without Reciprocal Mildness And Temperance There Can Be No Continuance Of Friendship. Every Man Will Have Something To Do For His Friend, And Something To Bear With In Him. The Sober Man Only Can Do The First; And For The Latter, Patience Is Requisite. It Is Better For A Man To Depend On Himself, Than To Be Annoyed With Either A Madman Or A Fool.

He That Always Waits Upon God Is Ready Whenever He Calls. Neglect Not To Set Your Accounts Even; He Is A Happy Man Who To Lives As That Death At All Times May Find Him At Leisure To Die.

He That, When He Should Not, Spends Too Much, Shall, When He Would Not, Have Too Little To Spend.

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