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
leadership world manipulation
The world cannot be governed without juggling.
ballads libel wells
More solid things do not show the complexion of the times so well as Ballads and Libels.
kings law people
Every law is a contract between the king and the people and therefore to be kept.
firsts preaching written
Preaching, in the first sense of the word, ceased as soon as ever the gospel was written.
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.
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.
drinking pride men
Pride may be allowed to this or that degree, else a man cannot keep up dignity. In gluttony there must be eating, in drunkenness there must be drinking; 'tis not the eating, and 'tis not the drinking that must be blamed, but the excess. So in pride.
drinking excess
It's not the drinking to be blamed, but the excess.
friendship kings real
Old friends are best. King James used to call for his old shoes; they were the easiest for his feet.
army men high-heels
Tis not seasonable to call a man traitor, that has an army at his heels.
kings men sake
A king is a thing men have made for their own sakes, for quietness sake. Just as in a family one man is appointed to buy the meat.
time kings men
The Hall was the place where the great lord used to eat . . . He ate not in private, except in time of sickness . . . Nay, the king himself used to eat in the Hall, and his lords sat with him, and he understood men.
taken expression roots
First, in your sermons, use your logic, and then your rhetoric; Rhetoric without logic, is like a tree with leaves and blossoms, but no root; yet more are taken with rhetoric than logic, because they are caught with fine expressions when they understand not reason.
noise
Those that govern most make least noise.