Quotes from John Webster

The gospel is good news because it is God's action of disorienting goodness.

And great men do great good, or else great harm.

Thou art happy that thou hast not understanding to know thy misery; for all our wit and reading brings us to a truer sense of sorrow.

Search the heads of the greatest rivers in the world, you shall find them but bubbles of water.

There are rewards for hawks and dogs when they have done us service; but for a soldier that hazards his limbs in a battle, nothing but a kind of geometry is his last supportation.

Let all that do ill, take this precedent: Man may his fate foresee, but not prevent. And of all axioms this shall win the prize, 'Tis better to be fortunate than wise.

So this isn't in any sense acquittal through moral performance, or a reward for good conduct. It's not something earned by years of carefully crafted holiness. It's a wholly "free gift," as Paul says five times in the span of three verses.

There's but three furies found in spacious hell, But in a great man's breast three thousand dwell

Know this, and let it somewhat raise your spite, Through darkness diamonds spread their richest light.

Our believing has no power of itself; we certainly aren't saved by belief. We're saved by the grace and goodness and majesty of him in whom we believe—by the one whom we confess as we believe. In a real sense, our belief is nothing in and of itself. It's simply a looking to him, a listening to him, in which we are wholly absorbed by that which we see and hear.

The heart of the matter, the heart of the Christian message, is constituted by a fearful question and a merciful answer: What must I do to be saved? Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you shall be saved.

Whether I resolve to fire, earth, water, air, Or all the elements by scruples, I know not, Nor greatly care. - Shoot. Shoot! Of all deaths, the violent death is best; For from ourselves it steals ourselves so fast, The pain, once apprehended, is quite past.

You know what whore is. Next the devil adultery, Enters the devil murder.

Affliction is not misery. Misery is the abasement of spirit which comes from the loss of God and good.

O me, this place is hell.

All the flowers of the spring Meet to perfume our burying; These have but their growing prime, And man does flourish but his time. Survey our progress from our birth: We are set, we grow, we turn to earth.

She and I were twins: And should I die this instant, I had liv'd her time to a minute.

Here comes Bosola, The only court-gall; yet I observe his railing Is not for simple love of piety: Indeed, he rails at those things which he wants; Would be as lecherous, covetous, or proud, Bloody, or envious, as any man, If he had means to be so.

UWhether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust, Like diamonds, we are cut with our own dust.

BOSOLA. He and his brother are like plum-trees

ANTONIO. 'Tis great pity He should be thus neglected: I have heard He 's very valiant. This foul melancholy Will poison all his goodness; for, I 'll tell you, If too immoderate sleep be truly said To be an inward rust unto the soul, If then doth follow want of action Breeds all black malcontents; and their close rearing, Like moths in cloth, do hurt for want of wearing.

Nature doth nothing so great for great men, as when she's pleased to make them lords of truth: Integrity of life is fame's best friend, which nobly, beyond death, shall crown the end.

We desperately need pardon. We need to have the past erased. We need, somehow, to have sin dealt with so that it no longer controls us and makes the present the slave of the past.

The might of God isn't infinite energy which could break out anywhere and do anything; it's not a shapeless force. God's might is God's might, the infinite resourcefulness of the God of grace.