The Holy State and the Profane State (1642)

• He knows little who will tell his wife all he knows.
  • The Good Husband.

• She commandeth her husband, in any equal matter, by constant obeying him.
  • The Good Wife.

• One that will not plead that cause wherein his tongue must be confuted by his conscience.
  • The Good Advocate.

• A little skill in antiquity inclines a man to Popery; but depth in that study brings him about again to our religion.
  • The True Church Antiquary. Compare: "A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion", Francis Bacon, Of Atheism.

• But our captain counts the image of God—nevertheless his image—cut in ebony as if done in ivory, and in the blackest Moors he sees the representation of the King of Heaven.
  • The Good Sea-Captain.

• To smell to a turf of fresh earth is wholesome for the body; no less are thoughts of mortality cordial to the soul.
  • The Virtuous Lady.

• Light, God's eldest daughter, is a principal beauty in a building.
  • Of Building.

• The lion is not so fierce as painted.
  • Of Preferment. Compare: "is bark is worse than his bite", George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum.

• Their heads sometimes so little that there is no room for wit; sometimes so long that there is no wit for so much room.
  • Of Natural Fools.

• The Pyramids themselves, doting with age, have forgotten the names of their founders.
  • Of Tombs.

• Learning hath gained most by those books by which the printers have lost.
  • Of Books.

• Deceive not thyself by overexpecting happiness in the married estate. Remember the nightingales which sing only some months in the spring, but commonly are silent when they have hatched their eggs.
  • Of Marriage.

• They that marry ancient people, merely in expectation to bury them, hang themselves in hope that one will come and cut the halter.
  • Of Marriage.

• Fame sometimes hath created something of nothing.
  • Of Fame.

• Anger is one of the sinews of the soul; he that wants it hath a maimed mind.
  • Of Anger.

• He will make a strange combustion in the state of his soul, who at the landing of every cockboat sets the beacons on fire.
  • Of Anger.

• Some men, like a tiled house, are long before they take fire, but once on flame there is no coming near to quench them.
  • Of Anger.

• Do not in an instant what an age cannot recompense.
  • Of Anger.

• Heat of passion makes our souls to chap, and the devil creeps in at the crannies.
  • Of Anger.

• Scoff not at the natural defects of any which are not in their power to amend. Oh 't is cruelty to beat a cripple with his own crutches.
  • Of Jesting.

Good Thoughts in Bad Times; And Good Thoughts in Worse Times

• LORD

WHAT faults I correct in my son, I commit myself: I beat him for dabbling in the dirt, whilst my own soul doth wallow in sin: I beat him for crying to cut his meat yet am not myself contented with that state thy Providence hath carved unto me: I beat him for crying when he is to go to sleep, and yet I fear I myself shall cry, when thou callest me to sleep with my fathers. Alas! I am more childish than my child, and what I inflict on him, I justly deserve to receive from thee - only here is the difference: I pray and desire that my correction on my child may do him good; it is in thy power Lord, to effect, that thy correction on me shall do me good.

• LORD

How near was I to danger, yet escaped! I was upon the brink of the brink of it yet fell not in; they are well kept who are kept by thee. Excellent Archer! thou didst hit the mark in missing it, as meaning to fright not hurt me. Let me not now be such a fool, as to pay my thanks to blind fortune for a favor, which the eye of Providence hath bestowed upon me. Rather let the narrowness of my escape make my thankfulness to thy goodness the larger, lest my ingratitude justly cause, that whereas this arrow but hit my hat, the next pierce my head.