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Humility is a virtue all preach, none practise, and yet every body is content to hear. The master thinks it good doctrine for his servant, the laity for the clergy, and the clergy for the laity.

John Selden

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John Selden
Age: 69 †
Born: 1584
Born: December 16
Died: 1654
Died: November 30
Jurist
Politician
Writer
Practice
Content
Body
Master
Every
Thinks
Laity
Good
Humility
Practise
Men
None
Clergy
Thinking
Masters
Preach
Virtue
Servant
Hear
Doctrine

More quotes by John Selden

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We pick out a text here and there to make it serve our turn whereas , if we take it all together, and considered what went before and what followed after, we should find it meant no such thing.
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Religion is like the fashion, one man wears his doublet slashed, another lashed, another plain but every man has a doublet so every man has a religion. We differ about the trimming.
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Take a straw and throw it up into the air, you may see by that which way the wind is.
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Humility is a virtue all preach, none practice and yet everybody is content to hear.
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Prayer should be short, without giving God Almighty reasons why He should grant this or that He knows best wheat is good for us. If your boy should ask you for a suit of clothes and give you reasons, would you endure it? You know his needs better than he let him ask for a suit of clothes.
John Selden
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A gallant man is above ill words.
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The law against witches does not prove there be any but it punishes the malice of those people that use such means to take away men's lives.
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If the prisoner should ask the judge whether he would be content to be hanged, were he in his case, he would answer no. Then, says the prisoner, do as you would be done to.
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Old friends are best. King James used to call for his old shoes they were the easiest for his feet.
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Few men make themselves masters of the things they write or speak.
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Philosophy is nothing but discretion.
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Of all the actions of a man's life, his marriage does least concern other people, yet of all the actions of our lives, 'tis the most meddled with by other people.
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In quoting of books, quote such authors as are usually read others you may read for your own satisfaction, but not name them.
John Selden
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Those that govern most make least noise.
John Selden
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Never tell your resolution beforehand, or it's twice as onerous a duty.
John Selden
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We measure the excellency of other men by some excellency we conceive to be in ourselves.
John Selden
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Nothing is text but what is spoken of in the Bible and meant there for person and place the rest is application which a discreet man may do well but it is his scripture, not the Holy Ghost's. First, in your sermons use your logic, and then your rhetoric rhetoric without logic is like a tree with leaves and blossoms, but no root.
John Selden
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Prayer should be short, without giving God Almighty reasons why he should grant this, or that he knows best what is good for us.
John Selden
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Tis not seasonable to call a man traitor, that has an army at his heels.
John Selden
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No man is the wiser for his learning
John Selden