Jeremy Taylor

"He that is choice of his time will be choice of his company, and choice of his actions."

"This grace (purity of intention) is so excellent that it sanctifies the most common actions of our life and yet is so necessary that without it, the very best actions of our devotion are imperfect and vicious."

"...since God has appointed one remedy for all the evils in the world and that is a contented spirit."

"...for there is some virtue or other to be exercised, whatever happens..."

"God is pleased with no music from below so much as in the thanksgiving songs of relieved widows, of supported orphans, of rejoicing, and comforted, and thankful persons."

"Can any thing in this world be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth can come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster?"

"The first things that hinders the prayer of a good man from obtaining its effects is a violent anger, and a violent storm in the spirit him who prayers."

"In self-examination, take no account of yourself by your thoughts and resolutions in the days of religion and solemnity; examine how it is with you in the days of ordinary conversation and in the circumstances of secular employment."

"Faith converses with the angels, and antedates the hymns of glory."

"Her heart was a passion-flower, bearing within it the crown of thorns and the cross of Christ."

"God is everywhere present by His power. He rolls the orbs of heaven with His hand; He fixes the earth with His foot; He guides all creatures with His eye, and refreshes them with His influence; He makes the powers of hell to shake with His terrors, and binds the devils with His word."