The Harvard Classics & Fiction Collection [180 Books] Quotes

“Love Labor: For if thou dost not want it for Food, thou mayest for Physick. It is wholesom for thy Body, and good for thy Mind. It prevents the Fruits of Idleness, which many times comes of nothing to do, and leads too many to do what is worse than nothing.”
― Various, The Harvard Classics & Fiction Collection [180 Books]

“The quarrels and divisions about religion were evils unknown to the heathen. The reason was because the religion of the heathen consisted rather in rites and ceremonies than in any constant belief. For you may imagine what kind of faith theirs was, when the chief doctors and fathers of their church were the poets. But the true God hath this attribute, that he is a jealous God; and therefore his worship and religion will endure no mixture nor partner.”
― Various, The Harvard Classics & Fiction Collection [180 Books]

“though I pleaded the usefulness of the work, mine convinced me that nothing was useful which was not honest.”
― Various, The Harvard Classics & Fiction Collection [180 Books]

“The Compleat Moralist begins with God; he gives him his Due, his Heart, his Love, his Service; the Bountiful Giver of his Well-Being, as well as Being.”
― Various, The Harvard Classics & Fiction Collection [180 Books]

“Did we believe a final Reckoning and Judgment; or did we think enough of what we do believe, we would allow more Love in Religion than we do; since Religion it self is nothing else but Love to God and Man.”
― Various, The Harvard Classics & Fiction Collection [180 Books]

“But nothing in us unlike him, can please him.”
― Various, The Harvard Classics & Fiction Collection [180 Books]

“Amuse not thy self therefore with the numerous Opinions of the World, nor value thy self upon verbal Orthodoxy, Philosophy, or thy Skill in Tongues, or Knowledge of the Fathers: (too much the Business and Vanity of the World). But in this rejoyce, That thou knowest God, that is the Lord, who exerciseth loving Kindness, and Judgment, and Righteousness in the Earth.”
― Various, The Harvard Classics & Fiction Collection [180 Books]

“The Devils also believe and know abundance: But in this is the Difference, their Faith works not by Love, nor their Knowledge by Obedience; and therefore they are never the better for them. And if ours be such, we shall be of their Church, not of Christ’s: For as the Head is, so must the Body be.”
― Various, The Harvard Classics & Fiction Collection [180 Books]

“We are apt to call things by wrong Names. We will have Prosperity to be Happiness, and Adversity to be Misery; though that is the School of Wisdom, and oftentimes the way to Eternal Happiness.”
― Various, The Harvard Classics & Fiction Collection [180 Books]

“Next to God, thy Parents; next them, the Magistrate.”
― Various, The Harvard Classics & Fiction Collection [180 Books]

“But in Marriage do thou be wise; prefer the Person before Money; Vertue before Beauty, the Mind before the Body: Then thou hast a Wife, a Friend, a Companion, a Second Self; one that bears an equal Share with thee in all thy Toyls and Troubles.”
― Various, The Harvard Classics & Fiction Collection [180 Books]

“The sentiments and opinions these authors express are frequently not acceptable to present-day readers, who have to be often saying to themselves: “This is not true, or not correct, or not in accordance with our beliefs.” It is, however, precisely this encounter with the mental states of other generations which enlarges the outlook and sympathies of the cultivated man, and persuades him of the upward tendency of the human race.”
― Various, The Harvard Classics & Fiction Collection [180 Books]

“I kept steadily to meetings, spent first-day afternoons chiefly in reading the Scriptures and other good books, and was early convinced in my mind that true religion consisted in an inward life, wherein the heart does love and reverence God the Creator, and learns to exercise true justice and goodness, not only toward all men, but also toward the brute creatures; that, as the mind was moved by an inward principle to love God as an invisible, incomprehensible Being, so, by the same principle, it was moved to love him in all his manifestations in the visible world; that, as by his breath the flame of life was kindled in all animal sensible creatures, to say we love God as unseen, and at the same time exercise cruelty toward the least creature moving by his life, or by life derived from him, was a contradiction in itself. I found no narrowness respecting sects and opinions, but believed that sincere, upright-hearted people, in every society, who truly love God, were accepted of him.”
― Various, The Harvard Classics & Fiction Collection [180 Books]

“I let her know that I expected as much money with their daughter as would pay off my remaining debt for the printing-house, which I believe was not then above a hundred pounds. She brought me word they had no such sum to spare; I said they might mortgage their house in the loan-office. The answer to this, after some days, was, that they did not approve the match; that, on inquiry of Bradford, they had been inform’d the printing business was not a profitable one; the types would soon be worn out, and more wanted; that S. Keimer and D. Harry had failed one after the other, and I should probably soon follow them; and, therefore, I was forbidden the house, and the daughter shut up.”
― Various, The Harvard Classics & Fiction Collection [180 Books]

“A man being sometimes more generous when he has but a little money than when he has plenty, perhaps thro’ fear of being thought to have but little.”
― Various, The Harvard Classics & Fiction Collection [180 Books]

“We sometimes disputed, and very fond we were of argument, and very desirous of confuting one another, which disputatious turn, by the way, is apt to become a very bad habit, making people often extremely disagreeable in company by the contradiction that is necessary to bring it into practice; and thence, besides souring and spoiling the conversation, is productive of disgusts and, perhaps enmities where you may have occasion for friendship. I had caught it by reading my father’s books of dispute about religion. Persons of good sense, I have since observed, seldom fall into it, except lawyers, university men, and men of all sorts that have been bred at Edinborough.”
― Various, The Harvard Classics & Fiction Collection [180 Books]

“From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books.”
― Various, The Harvard Classics & Fiction Collection [180 Books]

“one does not dress for private company as for a publick ball. ’Tis perhaps only negligence.”
― Various, The Harvard Classics & Fiction Collection [180 Books]

“Gov’r. Thomas was so pleas’d with the construction of this stove, as described in it, that he offered to give me a patent for the sole vending of them for a term of years; but I declin’d it from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions, viz., That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.”
― Various, The Harvard Classics & Fiction Collection [180 Books]

“In 1736 I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, by the small-pox, taken in the common way. I long regretted bitterly, and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation. This I mention for the sake of parents who omit that operation, on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it; my example showing that the regret may be the same either way, and that, therefore, the safer should be chosen.”
― Various, The Harvard Classics & Fiction Collection [180 Books]

“In theory it is easy to convince an ignorant person: in actual life, men not only object to offer themselves to be convinced, but hate the man who has convinced them.”
― Various, The Harvard Classics & Fiction Collection [180 Books]