John Selden
John Selden
John Seldenwas an English jurist and a scholar of England's ancient laws and constitution and scholar of Jewish law. He was known as a polymath showing true intellectual depth and breadth; John Milton hailed Selden in 1644 as "the chief of learned men reputed in this land."...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionStatesman
Date of Birth16 December 1584
benefits pleasure hunts
Pleasures are all alike simply considered in themselves: he that hunts, or he that governs the commonwealth, they both please themselves alike, only we commend that, whereby we ourselves receive some benefit.
wise people danger
Wise people say nothing in dangerous times.
hypocrisy together here-and-there
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.
marriage wedding men
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.
drinking pride men
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.
taken expression roots
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; yet more are taken with rhetoric than logic, because they are caught with fine expressions when they understand not reason.
fall men judgment
Commonly we say a judgment falls upon a man for something in him we cannot abide.
men excellence
We measure the excellency of other men by some excellency we conceive to be in ourselves.
husband believe eye
The clergy would have us believe them against our own reason, as the woman would have her husband against his own eyes.
humility men thinking
Humility is a virtue all men preach, none practice, and yet everybody is content to hear. The master thinks it good doctrine for his servants, the laity for the clergy, and the clergy for the laity.
pain giving apricots
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.
writing men speak
Few men make themselves masters of the things they write or speak.
book names satisfaction
In quoting of books, quote such authors as are usually read; others you may read for your own satisfaction, but not name them.
christian prayer light
Twas an unhappy Division that has been made between Faith and Works; though in my Intellect I may divide them, just as in the Candle I know there is both Light and Heat. But yet, put out the Candle, and they are both gone.