Owen Feltham Quotations

Shall I speak truly what I now see below? The World is all a carkass, smoak and vanity, The shadow of a shadow, a play And in one word, just Nothing.

Hope is to a man as a bladder to a learning swimmer--it keeps him from sinking in the bosom of the waves, and by that help he may attain the exercise; but yet it many times makes him venture beyond his height, and then if that breaks, or a storm rises, he drowns without recovery. How many would die, did not hope sustain them! How many have died by hoping too much! This wonder we find in Hope, that she is both a flatterer and a true friend.

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.

That man is but of the lower part of the world that is not brought up to business and affairs.

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.

To be gentle is the test of a lady.

The boundary of man is moderation. When once we pass that pale our guardian angel quits his charge of us.

Every man should study conciseness in speaking; it is a sign of ignorance not to know that long speeches, though they may please the speaker, are the torture of the hearer.

Pleasures can undo a man at any time, if yielded to.

It is much safer to reconcile an enemy than to conquer him; victory may deprive him of his poison, but reconciliation of his will.