Quotes from Roger L'Estrange

The common people do not judge of vice or virtue by morality or immorality, so much as by the stamp that is set upon it by men of figure.

Ingratitude is abhorred by God and man.

It is a way of calling a man a fool when no attention is given to what he says.

The very soul of the slothful does effectually but lie drowsing in his body, and the whole man is totally given up to his senses.

He that serves God for Money, will serve the Devil for better Wages.

Money does all things,--for it gives and it takes away; it makes honest men and knaves, fools and philosophers; and so forward, mutatis mutandis, to the end of the chapter.

Resolve to see the world on the sunny side and you have almost won the battle at the outset.

It is not the place, nor the condition, but the mind alone that can make anyone happy or miserable.

Live and let live is the rule of common justice.

Men talk as if they believed in God, but they live as if they thought there was none; their vows and promises are no more than words, of course.

Riches are gotten with pain, kept with care, and lost with grief. The cares of riches lie heavier upon a good man than the inconveniences of an honest poverty.

He that upon a true principle lives, without any disquiet of thought, may be said to be happy.

If we should cease to be generous and charitable because another is sordid and ungrateful, it would be much in the power of vice to extinguish Christian virtues.

The most insupportable of tyrants exclaim against the exercise of arbitrary power.

What signifies the sound of words in prayer without the affection of the heart, and a sedulous application of the proper means that may naturally lead us to such an end?

The lowest boor may laugh on being tickled, but a man must have intelligence to be amused by wit.

The blessings of fortune are the lowest; the next are the bodily advantages of strength and health; but the superlative blessings, in fine, are those of the mind.

A body may well lay too little as too much stress upon a dream; but the less he heed them the better.

By one delay after another they spin out their whole lives, till there's no more future left for them.

Figure-flingers and star-gazers pretend to foretell the fortunes of kingdoms, and have no foresight in what concerns themselves.

For what are the Aegyption Hierogliphicks, and the whole History of the Pagan Gods; the Hints, and Fictions of the Wise Men of Old, but in Effect, a kind of Philosophical Mythology ; Which is, in truth, no other, then a more Agreeable Vehicle found out for Conveying to us the Truth and Reason of Things, though the medium of Images and Shadows.

There are ways of Deceiving the Eyes, as well as of Blinding them; so that the Cause of the Innocent must be remitted at last to that Great and Final Decision, where there is no longer any Place for Passion, Partiality, Corruption, or Error. But as to the Business of This World, when the Cocks and the Lambs lie at the Mercy of the Cats and Wolves, they must never expect better Quarter; especially where the Hearts Blood of the One, is the Nourishment and Entertainment of the Other.

Innocence is no Protection against the Arbitrary Cruelty of a Tyrannical Power : But Reason and Conscience are yet so Sacred, that the Greatest Villanies are still Contenanc'd under that Cloak and Color.

Tis the Fate of All Gotham-Quarrels, when Fools go together by the Ears, to have Knaves run away with the Stakes.