Richard Hooker (March 1554 – November 3, 1600) was an Anglican priest and an influential theologian. Hooker's emphases on reason, tolerance and inclusiveness considerably influenced the development of Anglicanism. He was the co-founder (with Thomas Cranmer and Matthew Parker) of Anglican theological thought.

Quotes

• Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better.
  • Quoted by Samuel Johnson in the preface to A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

• Of Law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world. All things in heaven and earth do her homage,—the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power.
  • Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie (1594), Book I, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• That to live by one man's will became the cause of all men's misery.
  • Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie (1594), Book I, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• Words must be taken according to the matter whereof they are uttered.
  • Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie (1597), Book IV.11.7, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

About

• There is a wheel within a wheel; a secret sacred wheel of Providence (most visible in marriages), guided by His hand that allows not the race to the swift nor bread to the wise, nor good wives to good men: and He that can bring good out of evil (for mortals are blind to this reason) only knows why this blessing was denied to patient Job, to meek Moses, and to our as meek and patient Mr Hooker.
  • Izaak Walton, in Philip B. Secor, Richard Hooker: Prophet of Anglicanism and Son of Exeter. Walton (August 9, 1593 - December 15, 1683) was the chief biographer of Hooker.

• I observe there is in Mr. Hooker no affected language; but a grave, comprehensive, clear manifestation of reason, and that backed with the authority of the Scriptures, the fathers and schoolmen, and with all law both sacred and civil.
  • Izaac Walton, The Life of Mr Rich. Hooker. In Walton's Lives, George Saintsbury, ed., reprinted in Oxford World's Classics (1927).