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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
Body
Master
Every
Thinks
Laity
Good
Humility
Practise
Men
None
Clergy
Thinking
Masters
Preach
Virtue
Servant
Hear
Doctrine
Practice
Content

More quotes by John Selden

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The clergy would have us believe them against our own reason, as the woman would have her husband against his own eyes.
John Selden
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The House of Commons is called the Lower House, in twenty Acts of Parliament but what are twenty Acts of Parliament amongst Friends?
John Selden
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Idolatry is in a man's own thought, not in the opinion of another.
John Selden
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All things are God's already we can give him no right, by consecrating any, that he had not before, only we set it apart to his service - just as a gardener brings his master a basket of apricots, and presents them his lord thanks him, and perhaps gives him something for his pains, and yet the apricots were as much his lord's before as now.
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 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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More solid things do not show the complexion of the times so well as Ballads and Libels.
John Selden
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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.
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.
John Selden
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Preachers say, Do as I say, not as I do. But if a physician had the same disease upon him that I have, and he should bid me do one thing and he do quite another, could I believe him?
John Selden
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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.
John Selden
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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.
John Selden
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They that are against Superstition oftentimes run into it of the wrong side. If I will wear all colours but black, then am I superstitious in not wearing black.
John Selden
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Scrutamini scripturas (Let us look at the scriptures). These two words have undone the world.
John Selden
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Men say they are of the same religion, for quietness' sake but if the matter were well examined, you would scarce find three anywhere of the same religion on all points.
John Selden
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Marriage is a desperate thing.
John Selden
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Old friends are best. King James used to call for his old shoes they were the easiest for his feet.
John Selden
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The happiness of married life depends upon making small sacrifices with readiness and cheerfulness.
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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In a troubled state we must do as in foul weather upon a river, not think to cut directly through, for the boat may be filled with water but rise and fall as the waves do, and give way as much as we conveniently can.
John Selden
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Commonly we say a judgment falls upon a man for something in him we cannot abide.
John Selden