Top 160 Francis Quarles Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Hath fortune dealt thee ill cards? let wisdom make thee a good gamester. In a fair gale, every fool may sail, but wise behavior in a storm commends the wisdom of a pilot; to bear adversity with an equal mind is both the sign and glory of a brave spirit.”

— Francis Quarles

52. “They who cannot be induced to fear for love will never be enforced to love for fear. Love opens the heart, fear shuts it; that encourages, this compels; and victory meets encouragement, but flees compulsion.”

— Francis Quarles

53. “It is no happiness to live long, nor unhappiness to die soon; happy is he that hath lived long enough to die well.”

— Francis Quarles

54. “Let the fear of a danger be a spur to prevent it; he that fears not gives advantage to the danger; it is less folly not to endeavor the prevention of the evil thou fearest than to fear the evil which thy endeavor cannot prevent.”

— Francis Quarles

55. “If thou wouldst preserve a sound body, use fasting and walking; if a healthful soul, fasting and praying. Walking exercises the body; praying exercises the soul; fasting cleanses both.”

— Francis Quarles

56. “If thou neglectest thy love to thy neighbor, in vain thou professest thy love to God; for by thy love to God, the love to thy neighbor is begotten, and by the love to thy neighbor thy love to God is nourished.”

— Francis Quarles

57. “Rather do what is nothing to the purpose than be idle; that the devil may find thee doing. The bird that sits is easily shot, when fliers scape the fowler. Idleness is the Dead Sea that swallows all the virtues, and the self-made sepulchre of a living man.”

— Francis Quarles

58. “Knowledge descries; wisdom applies.”

— Francis Quarles

59. “So use prosperity, that adversity may not abuse thee: if in the one, security admits no fears, in the other, despair will afford no hopes; he that in prosperity can foretell a danger can in adversity foresee deliverance.”

— Francis Quarles

60. “Charity feeds the poor, so does pride; charity builds an hospital, so does pride. In this they differ: charity gives her glory to God; pride takes her glory from man.”

— Francis Quarles

61. “The world’s an Inn; and I her guest.”

— Francis Quarles

62. “If thou desire the love of God and man, be humble, for the proud heart, as it loves none but itself, is beloved of none but itself. Humility enforces where neither virtue, nor strength, nor reason can prevail.”

— Francis Quarles

63. “Put off thy cares with thy clothes; so shall thy rest strengthen thy labor, and so thy labor sweeten thy rest.”

— Francis Quarles

64. “The world is deceitful; her end is doubtful, her conclusion is horrible, her judge terrible, and her judgment is intolerable.”

— Francis Quarles

65. “The suburbs of folly is vain mirth, and profuseness of laughter is the city of fools.”

— Francis Quarles

66. “Whosoever obeyeth the devil, casteth himself down: for the devil may suggest, compel he cannot.”

— Francis Quarles

67. “Pleasures bring effeminacy, and effeminacy foreruns ruin; such conquests, without blood or sweat, sufficiently do revenge themselves upon their intemperate conquerors.”

— Francis Quarles

68. “The birds of the air die to sustain thee; the beasts of the field die to nourish thee; the fishes of the sea die to feed thee. Our stomachs are their common sepulchre. Good God! with how many deaths are our poor lives patched up! how full of death is the life of momentary man!”

— Francis Quarles

69. “Immortal life is something to be earned, By slow self-conquest, comradeship with Pain, And patient seeking after higher truths.”

— Francis Quarles

70. “If thou seest anything in thyself which may make thee proud, look a little further and thou shalt find enough to humble thee; if thou be wise, view the peacock’s feathers with his feet, and weigh thy best parts with thy imperfections.”

— Francis Quarles

71. “Virtue is nothing but an act of loving that which is to be beloved, and that act is prudence, from whence not to be removed by constraint is fortitude; not to be allured by enticements is temperance; not to be diverted by pride is justice.”

— Francis Quarles

72. “The grave is sooner cloy’d than men’s desire.”

— Francis Quarles

73. “In thy apparel avoid singularity, profuseness, and gaudiness. Be not too early in the fashion, nor too late. Decency is half way between affectation and neglect. The body is the shell of the soul, apparel is the husk of that shell; the husk often tells you what the kernel is.”

— Francis Quarles

74. “My soul, the seas are rough, and thou a stranger In these false coasts; O keep aloof; there’s danger; Cast forth thy plummet; see, a rock appears; Thy ships want sea-room; make it with thy tears.”

— Francis Quarles

75. “The next way home’s the farthest way about.”

— Francis Quarles

76. “Before thy undertaking of any design, weigh the glory of thy action with the danger of the attempt; if the glory outweigh the danger, it is cowardice to neglect it; if the danger exceed the glory, it is rashness to attempt it; if the balances stand poised, let thy own genius cast them.”

— Francis Quarles

77. “Let the ground of all thy religious actions be obedience; examine not why it is commanded, but observe it because it is commanded. True obedience neither procrastinates nor questions.”

— Francis Quarles

78. “God’s pleasure is at the end of our prayers.”

— Francis Quarles

79. “Afflictions clarify the soul.”

— Francis Quarles

80. “What money creates, money preserves: if thy wealth decays, thy honor dies; it is but a slippery happiness which fortunes can give, and frowns can take; and not worth the owning which a night’s fire can melt, or a rough sea can drown.”

— Francis Quarles

81. “Nor fire, nor rocks, can stop our furious minds, Nor waves, nor winds.”

— Francis Quarles

82. “A despairing heart is the true prophet of approaching evil; his actions may weave the webs of Fortune, but not break them.”

— Francis Quarles

83. “Nothing is more pleasing to God than an open hand, and a closed mouth.”

— Francis Quarles

84. “He that hath promised pardon on our repentance hat not promised life till we repent.”

— Francis Quarles

85. “Be not too great a niggard in the commendations of him that professes thy own quality: if he deserve thy praise, thou hast discovered thy judgment; if not, thy modesty: honor either returns or reflects to the giver.”

— Francis Quarles

86. “As all things eternal and primordial reappear, so all things mortal return to the earth. Honor, old age, probity, justice, constance, virtue, and gentleness are all gathered into the cold tomb.”

— Francis Quarles

87. “Make philosophy thy journey, theology thy journey’s end: philosophy is a pleasant way, but dangerous to him that either tires or retires; in this journey it is safe neither to loiter nor to rest, till thou hast attained thy journey’s end; he that sits down a philosopher rises up an atheist.”

— Francis Quarles

88. “Luxury is an enticing pleasure, a bastard mirth, which hath honey in her mouth, gall in her heart, and a sting in her tail.”

— Francis Quarles

89. “Though virtue give a ragged livery, she gives a golden cognizance; if her service make thee poor, blush not. Thy poverty may disadvantage thee, but not dishonor thee.”

— Francis Quarles

90. “Temper your enjoyments with prudence, lest there be written on your heart that fearful word ‘satiety.’”

— Francis Quarles

91. “After years of research, scientists recently reported that there is, indeed, arroz in Spanish Harlem. A full tongue and an empty brain are seldom parted.”

— Francis Quarles

92. “Before thou reprehend another, take heed thou art not culpable in what thou goest about to reprehend. He that cleanses a blot with blotted fingers makes a greater blur.”

— Francis Quarles

93. “Whose gold is double with a careful hand, His cares are double.”

— Francis Quarles

94. “That friendship will not continue to the end which is begun for an end.”

— Francis Quarles

95. “Hath any wounded thee with injuries? Meet them with patience. Hasty words rankle the wound; soft language dresses it.”

— Francis Quarles

96. “What treasures here do Mammon’s sons behold! Yet know that all that which glitters is not gold.”

— Francis Quarles

97. “Humility enforces where neither virtue nor strength can prevail, nor reason.”

— Francis Quarles

98. “If virtue accompany it, it is the heart’s paradise; if vice associate it, it is the soul’s purgatory.”

— Francis Quarles

99. “Proportion thy charity to the strength of thine estate, lest God proportion thine estate to the weakness of thy charity. Let the lips of the poor be the trumpet of thy gift, lest in seeking applause, thou lose thy reward. Nothing is more pleasing to God than an open hand and a closed mouth.”

— Francis Quarles

100. “Let all thy joys be as the month of May.”

— Francis Quarles