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Perfection is immutable. But for things imperfect, change is the way to perfect them.

Owen Feltham

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Owen Feltham
Died: 1668
Died: January 1
Writer
Owen Felltham
Imperfection
Cycles
Imperfect
Perfection
Perfect
Change
Way
Things
Immutable

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There is no man but for his own interest hath an obligation to be honest. There may be sometimes temptations to be otherwise but, all cards cast up, he shall find it the greatest ease, the highest profit, the best pleasure, the most safety, and the noblest fame, to hold the horns of this altar, which, in all assays, can in himself protect him.
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Virtue were a kind of misery if fame were all the garland that crowned her.
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I love the man that is modestly valiant that stirs not till he most needs, and then to purpose. A continued patience I commend not.
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Promises may get friends, but it is performance that must nurse and keep them.
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Praise has different effects, according to the mind it meets with it makes a wise man modest, but a fool more arrogant, turning his weak brain giddy.
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Every man should study conciseness in speaking it is a sign of ignorance not to know that long speeches, though they may please the speaker, are the torture of the hearer.
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Business is the salt of life, which not only gives a grateful smack to it, but dries up those crudities that would offend, preserves from putrefaction and drives off all those blowing flies that would corrupt it.
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Some are so uncharitable as to think all women bad, and others are so credulous as to believe they are all good. All will grant her corporeal frame more wonderful and more beautiful than man's. And can we think God would put a worse soul into a better body?
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The boundary of man is moderation. When once we pass that pale our guardian angel quits his charge of us.
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It is much safer to reconcile an enemy than to conquer him victory may deprive him of his poison, but reconciliation of his will.
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Zeal without humanity is like a ship without a rudder, liable to be stranded at any moment
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To be gentle is the test of a lady.
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All men will be Peters in their bragging tongue, and most men will be Peters in their base denial but few men will be Peters in their quick repentance.
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For converse among men, beautiful persons have less need of the mind's commending qualities. Beauty in itself is such a silent orator, that it is ever pleading for respect and liking, and by the eyes of others is ever sending, to their hearts for love.
Owen Feltham
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Virtue is the truest liberty.
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There is no belittling worse than to over praise a man.
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That man is but of the lower part of the world that is not brought up to business and affairs.
Owen Feltham
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Vice is a peripatetic, always in progression.
Owen Feltham
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Perfection is immutable. But for things imperfect change is the way to perfect them. It gets the name of wilfulness when it will not admit of a lawful change to the better. Therefore constancy without knowledge cannot be always good. In things ill it is not virtue, but an absolute vice.
Owen Feltham
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God has made no one absolute.
Owen Feltham