Joseph Hall
Joseph Hall
Joseph Hallwas an English bishop, satirist and moralist. His contemporaries knew him as a devotional writer, and a high-profile controversialist of the early 1640s. In church politics, he tended in fact to a middle way...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionClergyman
Date of Birth1 July 1574
soul sin
It is not sin that kills the soul, but impenitence.
men opinion
A man's opinion is in others; his being is in himself.
cases lows worst
And, if I were so low that I accounted myself the worst of all, yet some would account themselves in worse case.
let-me knows
Let me know myself; let others guess at me.
wise wish firsts
We must first pray, that God would make us wise; before we can wish, he would make us happy.
hate liberty fool
What fools are we, to be besotted with the love of our own trouble, and to hate our liberty and rest!
death lying eye
[W]e all lie down in our bed of earth as sure to wake as ever we can be to shut our eyes.
environmental world letters
How endless is that volume which God hath written of the world! Every creature is a letter, every day a new page.
giving littles study
It is of no small commendation to manage a little well. To live well in abundance is the praise of the estate, not of the person. I will study more how to give a good account of my little, than how to make it more.
mean guests welcome
For whom he means to make an often guest, One dish shall serve; and welcome make the rest.
adversity weather numbers
Surely the mischief of hypocrisy can never be enough inveighed against. When religion is in request, it is the chief malady of the church, and numbers die of it; though because it is a subtle and inward evil, it be little perceived. It is to be feared there are many sick of it, that look well and comely in God's outward worship, and they may pass well in good weather, in times of peace; but days of adversity are days of trial.
evil unity neutrality
Neutrality in things good or evil is both odious and prejudicial; but in matters of an indifferent nature is safe and commendable. Herein taking of parts maketh sides, and breaketh unity. In an unjust cause of separation, he that favoreth both parts may perhaps have least love of either side, but hath most charity in himself.
men envy joy
We are often infinitely mistaken, and take the falsest measures, when we envy the happiness of rich and great men; we know not the inward canker that eats out all their joy and delight, and makes them really much more miserable than ourselves.
hate calling holiness
How apt nature is, even in those who profess an eminence in holiness, to raise and maintain animosities against those whose calling or person they pretend to find cause to dislike!