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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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John Selden
Age: 69 †
Born: 1584
Born: December 16
Died: 1654
Died: November 30
Jurist
Politician
Writer
May
Cutting
Directly
Must
Policy
River
Giving
State
Boat
Much
Upon
Weather
Conveniently
Way
Water
Wave
Troubled
Think
Fall
Rise
Foul
Thinking
Give
Rivers
States
Filled
Waves

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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.
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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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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.
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No man is the wiser for his learning it may administer matter to work in, or objects to work upon but wit and wisdom are born with a man.
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There was never a merry world since the fairies left off dancing.
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Pleasure is nothing else but the intermission of pain.
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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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Abundance consists not alone in material possession, but in an uncovetous spirit.
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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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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.
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Those that govern most make least noise.
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Scrutamini scripturas (Let us look at the scriptures). These two words have undone the world.
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More solid things do not show the complexion of the times so well as Ballads and Libels.
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Idolatry is in a man's own thought, not in the opinion of another.
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The happiness of married life depends upon making small sacrifices with readiness and cheerfulness.
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Commonly we say a judgment falls upon a man for something in him we cannot abide.
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We measure the excellency of other men by some excellency we conceive to be in ourselves.
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The world cannot be governed without juggling.
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Thou little thinkest what a little foolery governs the world.
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A gallant man is above ill words.
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