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
imperfect-things perfection way
Perfection is immutable. But for things imperfect, change is the way to perfect them.
might would-be injustice
If ever I should affect injustice, it would be in this, that I might do courtesies and receive none.
balance would-be needs
He who would be singular in his apparel had need have something superlative to balance that affectation.
vices progression
Vice is a peripatetic, always in progression.
nurse promise may
Promises may get friends, but it is performance that must nurse and keep them.
three-things three motivational-business
In business, three things are necessary: knowledge, temper, and time.
dependence
There is no one subsists by himself alone.
anticipation dies
How many would die did not hope sustain them...
glasses hands perspective
Meditation is the soul's perspective glass, whereby, in her long remove, she discerneth God, as if He were nearer at hand.
wine men manners
Men are like wine,--not good before the lees of clownishness be settled.
two-friends keys secret
When two friends part they should lock up one another's secrets, and interchange their keys.
misery kind fame
Virtue were a kind of misery if fame were all the garland that crowned her.
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.
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.