Joseph Hall
Joseph Hall
Joseph Hallwas an English bishop, satirist and moralist. His contemporaries knew him as a devotional writer, and a high-profile controversialist of the early 1640s. In church politics, he tended in fact to a middle way...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionClergyman
Date of Birth1 July 1574
ambition humility pride
Worldly ambition is founded on pride or envy, but emulation, or laudable ambition, is actually founded in humility; for it evidently implies that we have a low opinion of our present attainments, and think it necessary to be advanced.
ears tongue shame
It is a shame for the tongue to cast itself upon the uncertain pardon of other's ears
hurt revenge flesh
Revenge commonly hurts both the offerer and sufferer; as we see in a foolish bee, which in her anger invenometh the flesh and loseth her sting, and so lives a drone ever after.
suffering strive found
I will rather suffer a thousand wrongs than offer one. I have always found that to strive with a superior is injurious; with an equal, doubtful; with an inferior, sordid and base; with any, full of unquietness.
soul sin
It is not sin that kills the soul, but impenitence.
men opinion
A man's opinion is in others; his being is in himself.
cases lows worst
And, if I were so low that I accounted myself the worst of all, yet some would account themselves in worse case.
let-me knows
Let me know myself; let others guess at me.
wise wish firsts
We must first pray, that God would make us wise; before we can wish, he would make us happy.
hate liberty fool
What fools are we, to be besotted with the love of our own trouble, and to hate our liberty and rest!
death lying eye
[W]e all lie down in our bed of earth as sure to wake as ever we can be to shut our eyes.
environmental world letters
How endless is that volume which God hath written of the world! Every creature is a letter, every day a new page.
giving littles study
It is of no small commendation to manage a little well. To live well in abundance is the praise of the estate, not of the person. I will study more how to give a good account of my little, than how to make it more.
mean guests welcome
For whom he means to make an often guest, One dish shall serve; and welcome make the rest.