Jeremy Taylor Quotes (1613-1667)

“There is something in every act of prayer that for a time stills the violence of passion, and elevates and purifies the affections.”

“Can any thing in this world be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth can come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster!”

“All virtuous women, like tortoises, carry their house on their heads, and their chappel in their heart, and their danger in their eye, and their souls in their hands, and God in all their actions.”

“Thus Nero went up and down Greece and challenged the fiddlers at their trade. Æropus, a Macedonian king, made lanterns; Harcatius, the king of Parthia, was a mole-catcher; and Biantes, the Lydian, filed needles.”

“Do not the work of God negligently and idly: let not thy heart be upon the world when thy hand is lift up in prayer; and be sure to prefer an action of religion, in its place and proper season, before all worldly pleasure, letting secular things, that may be dispensed with in themselves, in these circumstances wait upon the other; not like the patriarch, who ran from the altar in St. Sophia to his stable, in all his pontificals, and in the midst of his office, to see a colt newly fallen from his beloved and much-valued mare Phorbante. More prudent and severe was that of Sir Thomas More, who, being sent for by the king when he was at his prayers in public, returned answer, he would attend him when he had first performed his service to the King of kings.”