Top 160 Francis Quarles Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Has fortune dealt you some bad cards. Then let wisdom make you a good gamester.”

— Francis Quarles

2. “The fountain of beauty is the heart and every generous thought illustrates the walls of your chamber.”

— Francis Quarles

3. “My mind’s my kingdom.”

— Francis Quarles

4. “The height of all philosophy is to know thyself; and the end of this knowledge is to know God.”

— Francis Quarles

5. “Death’s a fable. Did not Heaven inspire your equal Elements with living Fire blown from the Spring of Life? Is not that breath Immortal? Come; ye are as free from death as He that made ye: Can the flames expire which he kindled?”

— Francis Quarles

6. “Be neither too early in the fashion, nor too long out of it, nor too precisely in it; what custom hath civilized is become decent, till then ridiculous; where the eye is the jury thy apparel is the evidence.”

— Francis Quarles

7. “Too much is a vanity; enough is a feast.”

— Francis Quarles

8. “Becoming fearless isn’t the point. That’s impossible. It’s learning how to control your fear, how to be free from it, that’s the point. Necessity of action takes away the fear of the act, and makes bold resolution the favorite of fortune.”

— Francis Quarles

9. “Be wisely worldly, but not worldly wise.”

— Francis Quarles

10. “I see no virtue where I smell no sweat.”

— Francis Quarles

11. “No man is born unto himself alone; Who lives unto himself, he lives to none.”

— Francis Quarles

12. “Read not books alone, but men, and amongst them chiefly thyself. If thou find anything questionable there, use the commentary of a severe friend, rather than the gloss of a sweet-lipped flatterer there is more profit in a distasteful truth than in deceitful sweetness.”

— Francis Quarles

13. “If you desire to be magnanimous, undertake nothing rashly, and fear nothing thou undertakest; fear nothing but infamy; dare anything but injury; the measure of magnanimity is neither to be rash nor timorous.”

— Francis Quarles

14. “I’ll ne’er distrust my God for cloth and bread while lilies flourish and the raven ’s fed.”

— Francis Quarles

15. “The heart is a small thing, but desireth great matters. It is not sufficient for a kite’s dinner, yet the whole world is not sufficient for it.”

— Francis Quarles

16. “Scandal breeds hatred; hatred begets division; division makes faction, and faction brings ruin.”

— Francis Quarles

17. “The voice of humility is God’s music, and the silence of humility is God’s rhetoric.”

— Francis Quarles

18. “Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.”

— Francis Quarles

19. “If thou desire to be held wise, be so wise as to hold thy tongue.”

— Francis Quarles

20. “Heaven is never deaf but when man’s heart is dumb.”

— Francis Quarles

21. “Wickedness is its own punishment.”

— Francis Quarles

22. “Seest thou good days? Prepare for evil times. No summer but hath its winter. He never reaped comfort in adversity that sowed not in prosperity.”

— Francis Quarles

23. “He that begins to live, begins to die.”

— Francis Quarles

24. “My soul, sit thou a patient looker-on; Judge not the play before the play is done: Her plot hath many changes; every day Speaks a new scene; the last act crowns the play.”

— Francis Quarles

25. “With a bloody flux of oaths vows deep revenge.”

— Francis Quarles

26. “If thou expect death as a friend, prepare to entertain it; if thou expect death as an enemy, prepare to overcome it; death has no advantage, but when it comes a stranger.”

— Francis Quarles

27. “The road to perseverance lies by doubt.”

— Francis Quarles

28. “Necessity of action takes away the fear of the act, and makes bold resolution the favorite of fortune.”

— Francis Quarles

29. “If opinion hath lighted the lamp of thy name, endeavor to encourage it with thy own oil, lest it go out and stink; the chronical disease of Popularity is shame; if thou be once up, beware; from fame to infamy is a beaten road.”

— Francis Quarles

30. “Sin is a basilisk whose eyes are full of venom. If the eye of thy soul see her first, it reflects her own poison and kills her; if she see thy soul, unseen, or seen too late, with her poison, she kills thee: since therefore thou canst not escape thy sin, let not thy sin escape thy observation.”

— Francis Quarles

31. “Lust is an immoderate wantonness of the flesh, a sweet poison, a cruel pestilence; a pernicious poison, which weakeneth the body of man, and effeminateth the strength of the heroic mind.”

— Francis Quarles

32. “Beware of him that is slow to anger; for when it is long coming, it is the stronger when it comes, and the longer kept. Abused patience turns to fury.”

— Francis Quarles

33. “O lust, thou infernal fire, whose fuel is gluttony; whose flame is pride, whose sparkles are wanton words; whose smoke is infamy; whose ashes are uncleanness; whose end is hell.”

— Francis Quarles

34. “He that hath no cross deserves no crown.”

— Francis Quarles

35. “Thy pride is but the prologue of thy shame; where vain-glory commands, there folly counsels; where pride rides, there shame lackeys.”

— Francis Quarles

36. “For trash and toys, And grief-engend’ring joys, What torment seems too sharp for flesh and blood; What bitter pills, Compos’d of real ills, Men swallow down to purchase one false good!”

— Francis Quarles

37. “When ambitious men find an open passage, they are rather busy than dangerous; and if well watched in their proceedings, they will catch them selves in their own snare, and prepare a way for their own destruction.”

— Francis Quarles

38. “The way to bliss lies not on beds of down, And he that had no cross deserves no crown.”

— Francis Quarles

39. “He that gives all, though but little, gives much; because God looks not to the quantity of the gift, but to the quality of the givers.”

— Francis Quarles

40. “If any speak ill of thee, flee home to thy own conscience, and examine thy heart: if thou be guilty, it is a just correction; if not guilty, it is a fair instruction: make use of both; so shalt thou distil honey out of gall, and out of an open enemy create a secret friend.”

— Francis Quarles

41. “Anger may repast with thee for an hour, but not repose for a night; the continuance of anger is hatred, the continuance of hatred turns malice.”

— Francis Quarles

42. “Is not this lily pure? What fuller can procure A white so perfect, spotless clear As in this flower doth appear?”

— Francis Quarles

43. “Use law and physic only for necessity; they that use them otherwise abuse themselves unto weak bodies, and light purses; they are good remedies, bad businesses, and worse recreations.”

— Francis Quarles

44. “Sweet tastes have sour closes; and he repents on thorns that sleeps in beds of roses.”

— Francis Quarles

45. “The place of charity, like that of God, is everywhere.”

— Francis Quarles

46. “Read not books alone, but men, and amongst them chiefly thyself.”

— Francis Quarles

47. “Heaven finds an ear when sinners find a tongue.”

— Francis Quarles

48. “Lust is a sharp spur to vice, which always putteth the affections into a false gallop.”

— Francis Quarles

49. “And what’s a life? – a weary pilgrimage, Whose glory in one day doth fill the stage With childhood, manhood, and decrepit age.”

— Francis Quarles

50. “Be very circumspect in the choice of thy company. In the society of thine equals thou shalt enjoy more pleasure; in the society of thy superiors thou shalt find more profit. To be the best in the company is the way to grow worse; the best means to grow better is to be the worst there.”

— Francis Quarles