Jeremy Taylor > Quotes

“Nothing is intolerable that is necessary.”
― Jeremy Taylor

“Never talk with any man, or undertake any trifling employment, merely to pass the time away; for every day well spent may become a “day of salvation,” and time rightly employed is an “acceptable time.” And remember, that the time thou triflest away, was given thee to repent in, to pray for pardon of sins, to work out thy salvation, to do the work of grace, to lay up against the day of judgment a treasure of good works, that thy time may be crowned with eternity.”
― Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living and Dying with Prayers

“Men are apt to prefer a prosperous error before an afflicted truth”
― Jeremy Taylor

“It is impossible for that man to despair who remembers that his Helper is omnipotent.”
― Jeremy Taylor

“In the morning, when you awake, accustom yourself to think first upon God, or something in order to his service; and at night also, let him close thine eyes and let your sleep be necessary and healthful, not idle and expensive of time, beyond the needs and conveniences of nature;”
― Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living and Dying with Prayers

“And it is a very great fault amongst a very great part of Christians, that in their enquiries of religion, even the best of them ordinarily ask but these two questions, "Is it lawful? Is it necessary?" If they find it lawful, they will do it without scruple or restraint; and then they suffer imperfection, or receive the reward of folly: for it may be lawful, and yet not fit to be done; it may be it is not expedient; and he that will do all that he can do lawfully, would, if he durst, do something that is not lawful. And as great an error is on the other hand in the other question. He that too strictly enquires of an action whether it be necessary or no, would do well to ask also whether it be good? whether it be of advantage to the interest of his soul? For if a christian man or woman; that is, a redeemed, blessed, obliged person, a great beneficiary, endeared to God beyond all the comprehensions of a man's imagination, one that is less than the least of all God's mercies, and yet hath received many great ones and hopes for more, if he should do nothing but what is necessary, that is, nothing but what he is compelled to; then he hath the obligations of a son, and the affections of a slave, which is the greatest undecency of the world in the accounts of christianity. If a Christian will do no more than what is necessary, he will quickly be tempted to omit something of that also. . . .

He that will do every thing that is lawful, and nothing but what is necessary, will be an enemy when he dares, and a friend when he cannot help it.”
― Jeremy Taylor

“I acknowledge, dear God, that I have deserved the greatest of thy wrath and indignation; and that, if thou hadst dealt with me according to my deserving, I had now, at this instant, been desperately bewailing my miseries in the sorrows and horrors of a sad eternity. But thy mercy triumphing over thy justice and my sins, thou hast still continued to me life and time of repentance; thou hast opened to me the gates of grace and mercy, and perpetually callest upon me to enter in, and to walk in the paths of a holy life, that I might glorify thee, and be glorified of thee eternally.”
― Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living and Dying

“Idleness is the greatest prodigality in the world it throws away that, which is invaluable in respect of its present use, and irreparable when it is past, being to be recovered by no power of art or nature”
― Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living and Dying with Prayers

“Gabriel Simeon: “Our life is very short; beauty is a cozenage; money is false and fugitive; empire is adious, and hated by them that have it not, and uneasy to them that have; victory is always uncertain, and peace, most commonly, is but a fraudulent bargain; old age is miserable, death is the period, and is a happy one, if it be not sorrowed by the sins of our life: but nothing continues but the effects of that wisdom which employs the present time in the acts of a holy religion and a peaceable conscience.” For they make us to live even beyond our funerals, embalmed in the spices and odours of a good name, and entombed in the grave of the holy Jesus, where we shall be dressed for a blessed resurrection to the state of angels and beatified spirits.”
― Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living and Dying

“Enjoy the present, whatsoever it be, and be not solicitous for the future...Enjoy the blessings of this day, if God sends them, and the evils of it bear patiently and sweetly; for this day is only ours; we are dead to yesterday, and we are not yet born to the morrow.”
― Jeremy Taylor, The Whole Works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor, Volume 1

“5. Avoid the company of drunkards and busybodies, and all such as are apt to talk much to little purpose; for no man can be provident of his time that is not prudent in the choice of his company; and if one of the speakers be vain, tedious, and trifling, he that hears, and he that answers in the discourse, are equal losers of their time.”
― Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living and Dying

“Do not think that God is only to be found in a great prayer, or a solemn office: he is moved by a sigh, by a groan, by an act of love; and therefore, when your pain is great and pungent, lay all your strength upon it.”
― Jeremy Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying

“to a busy man, temptation is fain to climb up together with his business, and sins creep upon him only by accidents and occasions; whereas, to an idle person, they come in a full body, and with open violence and the impudence of a restless importunity.”
― Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living and Dying with Prayers

“And, indeed, if we consider how much of our lives is taken up by the needs of nature; how many years are wholly spent, before we come to any use of reason; how many years more before that reason is useful to us to any great purposes, how imperfect our discourse is made by our evil education, false principles, ill company, bad examples, and want of experience; how many parts of our wisest and best years are spent in eating and sleeping, in necessary businesses and unnecessary vanities, in worldly civilities and less useful circumstances, in the learning arts and sciences, languages, or trades; that little portion of hours that is left for the practices of piety and religious walking with God, is so short and trifling, that, were not the goodness of God infinitely great, it might seem unreasonable or impossible for us to expect of him eternal joys in heaven, even after the well spending those few minutes which are left for God and God’s service, after we have served ourselves and our own occasions.”
― Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living and Dying

“He that is choice of his time will be choice of his company, and choice of his actions.”
― Jeremy Taylor

“And yet nature hath in them teeth and nails enough to scratch and fight against the sickness, and by such aids as God is pleased to give them they wade through the storm and murmur not.”
― Jeremy Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying

“Цени радостите на всеки нов ден...бедите приемай с търпение, защото само настоящето е наше: за миналото сме вече мъртви, за бъдещето - още не сме родени.”
― Jeremy Taylor

“Natural necessity and the example of St. John, who recreated himself with sporting with a tame partridge, teach us, that it is lawful to relax and unbend our bow, but not to suffer it to be unready or unstrung. 17.”
― Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living and Dying

“Marriage is the mother of the world, and preserves kingdoms, and fills cities, and churches, and heaven itself.”
― Jeremy Taylor, Jeremy Taylor: Selected Works (Classics of Western Spirituality

“Man is a bubble, and all the world is a storm.”
― Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living and Dying: With Prayers Containing the Whole Duty of a Christian

“A man is so vain, so unfixed, so perishing a creature, that he cannot long last in the scene of fancy: a man goes off, and is forgotten, like the dream of a distracted person. The sum of all is this: that thou art a man, than whom there is not in the world any greater instance of heights and declinations, of lights and shadows, of misery and folly, of laughter and tears, of groans and death.”
― Jeremy Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying

“[...] because it must be had by some instrument, and in some period of our duration, we must carry up our affections to the mansions prepared for us above, where eternity is the measure, felicity is the state, angels are the company, the Lamb is the light, and God is the portion and inheritance.”
― Jeremy Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying