Quote

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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John Selden
Age: 69 †
Born: 1584
Born: December 16
Died: 1654
Died: November 30
Jurist
Politician
Writer
Good
Asks
Almighty
Would
Give
Suits
Best
Endure
Reason
Reasons
Better
Short
Wheat
Without
Clothes
Grant
Giving
Boys
Grants
Needs
Prayer
Suit

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Pride may be allowed to this or that degree, else a man cannot keep up dignity. In gluttony there must be eating, in drunkenness there must be drinking 'tis not the eating, and 'tis not the drinking that must be blamed, but the excess. So in pride.
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There is no book on which we can rest in a dying moment but the Bible.
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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?
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Scrutamini scripturas (Let us look at the scriptures). These two words have undone the world.
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Ignorance of the law excuses no man not that all men know the law, but because 'tis an excuse every man will plead, and no man can tell how to refute him.
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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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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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We measure the excellency of other men by some excellency we conceive to be in ourselves.
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The happiness of married life depends upon making small sacrifices with readiness and cheerfulness.
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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.
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Abundance consists not alone in material possession, but in an uncovetous spirit.
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Tis not seasonable to call a man traitor, that has an army at his heels.
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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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Philosophy is nothing but discretion.
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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.
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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.
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Few men make themselves masters of the things they write or speak.
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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 what is good for us.
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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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