Owen Feltham
Owen Feltham
Owen Felthamwas an English writer, author of a book entitled Resolves, Divine, Moral, and Political, containing 146 short essays. It had great popularity in its day. Feltham was for a time in the household of the Earl of Thomond as chaplain or sec., and published, Brief Character of the Low Countries. His most cited essay is "How the Distempers of these Times should affect wise Men" which was selected for inclusion in John Gross' The Oxford Book of Essays, a...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionAuthor
honesty men safety
There is no man but for his own interest hath an obligation to be honest. There may be sometimes temptations to be otherwise; but, all cards cast up, he shall find it the greatest ease, the highest profit, the best pleasure, the most safety, and the noblest fame, to hold the horns of this altar, which, in all assays, can in himself protect him.
two-friends keys secret
When two friends part they should lock up one another's secrets, and interchange their keys.
honesty safety fame
Honesty is a warrant of far more safety than fame.
friends wise thinking
The noblest part of a friend is an honest boldness in the notifying of errors. He that tells me of a fault, aiming at my good, I must think him wise and faithful--wise in spying that which I see not; faithful in a plain admonishment, not tainted with flattery.
misery kind fame
Virtue were a kind of misery if fame were all the garland that crowned her.
beautiful women believe
Some are so uncharitable as to think all women bad, and others are so credulous as to believe they are all good. All will grant her corporeal frame more wonderful and more beautiful than man's. And can we think God would put a worse soul into a better body?
together world stones
God has made no one absolute. The rich depend on the poor, as well as the poor on the rich. The world is but a magnificent building; all the stones are gradually cemented together. No one subsists by himself.
weed growing-up fall
Arrogance is a weed which grows upon a dunghill; it is from the rankness of the soil that she has her height and spreadings: witness, clowns, fools, and fellows, who from nothing, are lifted up some few steps on fortune's ladder: where, seeing the glorious representment of honour above them, they are so eager to embrace it, that they strive to leap thither at once, and by over-reaching themselves in the way, they fail of the end, and fall.
liberty virtue truest
Virtue is the truest liberty.
friends men annoyed
No man can expect to find a friend without faults; nor can he propose himself to be so to another. Without reciprocal mildness and temperance there can be no continuance of friendship. Every man will have something to do for his friend, and something to bear with in him. The sober man only can do the first; and for the latter, patience is requisite. It is better for a man to depend on himself, than to be annoyed with either a madman or a fool.
littles too-much economy
He that, when he should not, spends too much, shall, when he would not, have too little to spend.
hope true-friend recovery
Hope is to a man as a bladder to a learning swimmer--it keeps him from sinking in the bosom of the waves, and by that help he may attain the exercise; but yet it many times makes him venture beyond his height, and then if that breaks, or a storm rises, he drowns without recovery. How many would die, did not hope sustain them! How many have died by hoping too much! This wonder we find in Hope, that she is both a flatterer and a true friend.
hope men yield
Human life has not a surer friend, nor oftentimes a greater enemy, than hope. It is the miserable man's god, which in the hardest gripe of calamity never fails to yield to him beams of comfort. It is the presumptuous man's devil, which leads him a while in a smooth way, and then suddenly breaks his neck.
tests gentle
To be gentle is the test of a lady.