John Selden
John Selden
John Seldenwas an English jurist and a scholar of England's ancient laws and constitution and scholar of Jewish law. He was known as a polymath showing true intellectual depth and breadth; John Milton hailed Selden in 1644 as "the chief of learned men reputed in this land."...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionStatesman
Date of Birth16 December 1584
ignorance men law
Ignorance of the law excuses no man.
kings law people
Every law is a contract between the king and the people and therefore to be kept.
christian country hate
Talk what you will of the Jews,--that they are cursed: they thrive wherever they come; they are able to oblige the prince of their country by lending him money; none of them beg; they keep together; and as for their being hated, why, Christians hate one another as much.
philosophy men two
When men comfort themselves with philosophy, 'tis not because they have got two or three sentences, but because they have digested those sentences, and made them their own: philosophy is nothing but discretion.
wit spoil stills
Women ought not to know their own wit, because they will still be showing it, and so spoil it.
ends wit wit-and-wisdom
Wit and wisdom differ; wit is upon the sudden turn, wisdom is bringing about ends.
money men laughing
Money makes a man laugh.
fashion men religion
Religion is like the fashion, one man wears his doublet slashed, another lashed, another plain; but every man has a doublet; so every man has a religion. We differ about the trimming.
knives religion mouths
We look after religion as the butcher did after his knife, when he had it in his mouth.
firsts preaching written
Preaching, in the first sense of the word, ceased as soon as ever the gospel was written.
reading men comfort
Patience is the chiefest fruit of study; a man that strives to make himself different from other men by much reading gains this chiefest good, that in all fortunes he hath something to entertain and comfort himself withal.
husband believe eye
The clergy would have us believe them against our own reason, as the woman would have her husband against his own eyes.
hypocrisy together here-and-there
We pick out a text here and there to make it serve our turn; whereas , if we take it all together, and considered what went before and what followed after, we should find it meant no such thing.
marriage wedding men
Of all the actions of a man's life, his marriage does least concern other people, yet of all the actions of our lives, 'tis the most meddled with by other people.