Jeremy Taylor

No man can tell but he that loves his children, how many delicious accents make a man's heart dance in the pretty conversation of those dear pledges; their childishness, their stammering, their little angers, their innocence, their imperfections, their necessities, are so many little emanations of joy and comfort to him that delights in their persons and society.
Jeremy Taylor

Adultery itself in its principle is many times nothing but a curious inquisition after, and envy of another man's enclosed pleasures: and there have been many who refused fairer objects that they might ravish an enclosed woman from her retirement and single possessor.
Jeremy Taylor

God hath prepared a little coronet or special reward (extraordinary and beside the great crown of all faithful souls) for those who have not defiled themselves with women.
Jeremy Taylor

Nothing is greater or more fearful sacrilege than to prostitute the great name of God to the petulancy of an idle tongue.
Jeremy Taylor

What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth could come by chance, when all the skill of science is not able to make an oyster.
Jeremy Taylor

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

Every act of virtue is an ingredient unto reward.
Jeremy Taylor

Love is friendship set on fire.
Jeremy Taylor

Dive on them and squash them if you must.
Jeremy Taylor

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

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

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

No one is poor who does not think they are, however, if in prosperity with impatience they desire more, and proclaim their wants they disclose their beggarly condition.
Jeremy Taylor

Whatsoever we beg of God, let us also work for it.
Jeremy Taylor

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.
Jeremy Taylor

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.
Jeremy Taylor

Curiosity is the direct incontinency of the spirit.
Jeremy Taylor

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

He that speaketh against his own reason speaks against his own conscience, and therefore it is certain that no man serves God with a good conscience who serves him against his reason.
Jeremy Taylor

Secrecy is the chastity of friendship.
Jeremy Taylor

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.
Jeremy Taylor

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.
Jeremy Taylor

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

To be proud of learning is the greatest ignorance.
Jeremy Taylor

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.
Jeremy Taylor

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.
Jeremy Taylor

A religion without mystery must be a religion without God.
Jeremy Taylor

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

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

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

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

Curiosity is the direct incontinence of the spirit.
Jeremy Taylor