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Is not this lily pure? What fuller can procure A white so perfect, spotless clear As in this flower doth appear?

Francis Quarles

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Francis Quarles
Age: 52 †
Born: 1592
Born: May 8
Died: 1644
Died: September 8
Author
Poet
Writer
Havering
Lilies
Doth
Appear
Flower
Pure
Spotless
Clear
Procure
Perfect
Lily
White
Fuller

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The strong desires of man's insatiate breast may stand possess'd Of all that earth can give but earth can give no rest.
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My soul, the seas are rough, and thou a stranger In these false coasts O keep aloof there's danger Cast forth thy plummet see, a rock appears Thy ships want sea-room make it with thy tears.
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If thou desire to be held wise, be so wise as to hold thy tongue.
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Things temporal are sweeter in the expectation, things eternal are sweeter in the fruition the first shames thy hope, the second crowns it it is a vain journey, whose end affords less pleasure than the way.
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Afflictions clarify the soul.
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Heaven finds an ear when sinners find a tongue.
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Nothing is more pleasing to God than an open hand, and a closed mouth.
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That action is not warrantable which either fears to ask the divine blessing on its performance, or having succeeded, does not come with thanksgiving to God for its success.
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Wisdom not only gets, but once got, retains.
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Proportion thy charity to the strength of thine estate, lest God proportion thine estate to the weakness of thy charity. Let the lips of the poor be the trumpet of thy gift, lest in seeking applause, thou lose thy reward. Nothing is more pleasing to God than an open hand and a closed mouth.
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Scandal breeds hatred hatred begets division division makes faction, and faction brings ruin.
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He that hath no cross deserves no crown.
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O who would trust this world, or prize what's in it, That gives and takes, and chops and changes, ev'ry minute?
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It is no happiness to live long, nor unhappiness to die soon happy is he that hath lived long enough to die well.
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In the height of thy prosperity expect adversity, but fear it not. If it come not, thou art the more sweetly possessed of the happiness thou hast, and the more strongly confirmed. If it come, thou art the more gently dispossessed of the happiness thou hadst, and the more firmly prepared.
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Read not books alone, but men, and amongst them chiefly thyself. If thou find anything questionable there, use the commentary of a severe friend, rather than the gloss of a sweet-lipped flatterer there is more profit in a distasteful truth than in deceitful sweetness.
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Be neither too early in the fashion, nor too long out of it, nor too precisely in it what custom hath civilized is become decent, till then ridiculous where the eye is the jury thy apparel is the evidence.
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Nor fire, nor rocks, can stop our furious minds, Nor waves, nor winds.
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If thou desire to purchase honor with thy wealth, consider first how that wealth became thine if thy labor got it, let thy wisdom keep it if oppression found it, let repentance restore it if thy parent left it, let thy virtues deserve it so shall thy honor be safer, better and cheaper.
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Wickedness is its own punishment.
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