Richard Hooker Quotations

Angels are unsatisfiable in their longing to do by all means all manner of good unto all the creatures, ...especially the children of men.

Of two Evils we take the less.

To live by one man's will becomes the cause of all misery.

He that goeth about to persuade a multitude that they are not so well governed as they ought to be shall never want attentive and favorable hearers.

The reason why the simpler sort are moved by authority is the consciousness of their own ignorance

Even ministers of good things are like torches, a light to others, waste and destruction to themselves.

So that every man lawfully ordained must bring a bow which hath two strings, a title of present right and another to provide for future possibility or chance.

There is a wheel within a wheel; a secret sacred wheel of Providence (most visible in marriages), guided by His hand that allows not the race to the swift nor bread to the wise, nor good wives to good men: and He that can bring good out of evil (for mortals are blind to this reason) only knows why this blessing was denied to patient Job, to meek Moses, and to our as meek and patient Mr Hooker.

The reason why the simpler sort are moved with authority, is the consciousness of their own ignorance; whereby it cometh to pass that having learned men in admiration, they rather fear to dislike them than know wherefore they should allow and follow their judgments. Contrariwise with them that are skilful authority is much more strong and forcible; because they only are able to discern how just cause there is why to some men's authority so much should be attributed.

Man doth seek a triple perfection: first a sensual, consisting in those things which very life itself requireth either as necessary supplements, or as beauties and ornaments thereof; then an intellectual, consisting in those things which none underneath man is either capable of or acquainted with; lastly a spiritual and divine, consisting in those things whereunto we tend by supernatural means here, but cannot here attain unto them.