Top 90 Jeremy Taylor Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Revenge is like a rolling stone, which, when a man hath forced up a hill, will return upon him with a greater violence, and break those bones whose sinews gave it motion.”

— Jeremy Taylor

2. “All dreams reflect inborn creativity and ability to face and solve life’s problems.”

— Jeremy Taylor

3. “It is impossible to make people understand their ignorance, for it requires knowledge to perceive it; and, therefore, he that can perceive it hath it not.”

— Jeremy Taylor

4. “My life is blessed; I have held my children’s children.”

— Jeremy Taylor

5. “The private and personal blessings we enjoy- the blessings of immunity, safeguard, liberty and integrity- deserve the thanksgiving of a whole life.”

— Jeremy Taylor

6. “Prayer is the peace of our spirit, the stillness of our thoughts, the evenness of recollection, the seat of meditation, the rest of our cares and the calm of our tempest; prayer is the issue of a quiet mind, of untroubled thoughts, it is the daughter of charity, and the sister of meekness.”

— Jeremy Taylor

7. “Meditation is the tongue of the soul and the language of our spirit.”

— Jeremy Taylor

8. “Children, honor your parents in your hearts; bear them not only awe and respect, but kindness and affection: love their persons, fear to do anything that may justly provoke them; highly esteem them as the instruments under God of your being: for Ye shall fear every man his mother and his father.”

— Jeremy Taylor

9. “Lust is a captivity of the reason and an enraging of the passions. It hinders business and distracts counsel. It sins against the body and weakens the soul.”

— Jeremy Taylor

10. “It is impossible for that man to despair who remembers that his Helper is omnipotent.”

— Jeremy Taylor

11. “To be proud of learning is the greatest ignorance.”

— Jeremy Taylor

12. “Faith is the root of all blessings. Believe, and you shall be saved; believe, and you must needs be satisfied; believe, and you cannot but be comforted and happy.”

— Jeremy Taylor

13. “Know that you are your greatest enemy, but also your greatest friend.”

— Jeremy Taylor

14. “God hath given to man a short time here upon earth, and yet upon this short time eternity depends.”

— Jeremy Taylor

15. “A good wife is heaven’s last, best gift to man, – his gem of many virtues, his casket of jewels; her voice is sweet music, her smiles his brightest day, her kiss the guardian of his innocence, her arms the pale of his safety...”

— Jeremy Taylor

16. “By friendship you mean the greatest love, the greatest usefulness, the most open communication, the noblest sufferings, the severest truth, the heartiest counsel, and the greatest union of minds which brave men and women are capable.”

— Jeremy Taylor

17. “Humility is like a tree, whose root when it sets deepest in the earth rises higher, and spreads fairer and stands surer, and lasts longer, and every step of its descent is like a rib of iron.”

— Jeremy Taylor

18. “A religion without mystery must be a religion without God.”

— Jeremy Taylor

19. “Love is friendship set on fire. Hate is friendship burned.”

— Jeremy Taylor

20. “Friendship is the strongest bond in the world.”

— Jeremy Taylor

21. “If thou has a bundle of thorns in thy lot, there is no need to sit down on it.”

— Jeremy Taylor

22. “God is pleased with no music below so much as with the thanksgiving songs of relieved widows and supported orphans; of rejoicing, comforted, and thankful persons.”

— Jeremy Taylor

23. “A wise man shall overrule his stars, and have a greater influence upon his own content than all the constellations and planets of the firmament.”

— Jeremy Taylor

24. “No man can hinder our private addresses to God; every man can build a chapel in his breast, himself the priest, his heart the sacrifice, and the earth he treads on, the altar.”

— Jeremy Taylor

25. “Secrecy is the chastity of friendship.”

— Jeremy Taylor

26. “The Holy Ghost is certainly the best preacher in the world, and the words of Scripture the best sermons.”

— Jeremy Taylor

27. “When you lie down with a short prayer, commit yourself into the hands of your Creator; and when you have done so, trust Him with yourself, as you must do when you are dying.”

— Jeremy Taylor

28. “A pure mind in a chaste body is the mother of wisdom and deliberation; sober counsels and ingenuous actions; open deportment and sweet carriage; sincere principles and unprejudiced understanding; love of God and self-denial; peace and confidence; hol.”

— Jeremy Taylor

29. “When thou receivest praise, take it indifferently, and return it to God, the giver of the gift, or blesser of the action.”

— Jeremy Taylor

30. “Mistake not. Those pleasures are not pleasures that trouble the quiet and tranquillity of thy life.”

— Jeremy Taylor

31. “Habits are the daughters of action, but then they nurse their mother, and produce daughters after her image, but far more beautiful and prosperous.”

— Jeremy Taylor

32. “Many are idly busy; Domitian was busy, but then it was in catching flies.”

— Jeremy Taylor

33. “Temperance is reason’s girdle and passion’s bridle, the strength of the soul and the foundation of virtue.”

— Jeremy Taylor

34. “The best theology is rather a divine life than a divine knowledge.”

— Jeremy Taylor

35. “I have seen the sun with a little ray of distant light challenge all the powers of darkness, and without violence and noise, climbing up the hill, hath made night so retire that its memory was lost in the joys and sprightliness of the morning.”

— Jeremy Taylor

36. “Some friendships are made by nature, some by contract, some by interest, and some by souls.”

— Jeremy Taylor

37. “Marriage is the mother of the world. It preserves kingdoms, and fills cities and churches, and heaven itself.”

— Jeremy Taylor

38. “Mercy is like the rainbow, which God hath set in the clouds; it never shines after it is night. If we refuse mercy here, we shall have justice in eternity.”

— Jeremy Taylor

39. “Teach us to pray often, that we may pray oftener.”

— Jeremy Taylor

40. “The bodies of the damned shall be crowded together in hell, like grapes in a wine-press, which press one another till they burst; every distinct sense and organ shall be assailed with its own appropriate and most exquisite sufferings.”

— Jeremy Taylor

41. “From David learn to give thanks for everything. Every furrow in the book of Psalms is sown with the seeds of thanksgiving.”

— Jeremy Taylor

42. “No man is poor who does not think himself so. But if in a full fortune with impatience he desires more, he proclaims his wants and his beggarly condition.”

— Jeremy Taylor

43. “Every act of virtue is an ingredient unto reward.”

— Jeremy Taylor

44. “Nothing is greater or more fearful sacrilege than to prostitute the great name of God to the petulancy of an idle tongue.”

— Jeremy Taylor

45. “Covetousness teaches people to be cruel and crafty, industrious and evil, full of care and malice; and after all this, it is for no good to itself, for it dares not spend those heaps of treasure which it has snatched.”

— Jeremy Taylor

46. “God is everywhere present by His power. He rolls the orbs of heaven with His hand; He fixes the earth with His foot; He guides all creatures with His eye, and refreshes them with His influence; He makes the powers of hell to shake with His terrors, and binds the devils with His word.”

— Jeremy Taylor

47. “He that does a base thing in zeal for his friend burns the golden thread that ties their hearts together.”

— Jeremy Taylor

48. “A celibate, like the fly in the heart of an apple, dwells in a perpetual sweetness, but sits alone, and is confined and dies in singularity.”

— Jeremy Taylor

49. “Laughing, if loud, ends with a deep sigh; and all pleasures have a sting in the tail, though they carry beauty in the face.”

— Jeremy Taylor

50. “All virtuous women, like tortoises, carry their house on their heads, and their chappel in their heart, and their danger in their eye, and their souls in their hands, and God in all their actions.”

— Jeremy Taylor