Quotes from Cotton Mather

and had occasion to think on the Italian proverb, " To wait for one who does not come; to lye a bed not able to sleep; and to find it impossible to please those whom we serve; are three griefs enough to kill a man.

the spirit of an Heylin, who seems to count no obloquy too hard for a reformer; and the spirit of those (folio-writers there are, some of them, in the English nation!) whom a noble Historian stigmatizes, as, "Those hot-headed, passionate bigots, from whom, 'tis enough, if you be of a religion contrary unto theirs, to be defamed, condemned and pursued with a thousand calumnies.

The gentleman that succeeded Mr. Endicot was Mr. Richard Bellingham, one who was bred a lawyer, and one who lived beyond eighty, well esteemed for his laudable qualities, but as the Thebans made the statues of their magistrates without hands, importing that they must be no takers;

He was, indeed, a governour, who had most exactly studied that book which, pretending to teach politicks, did only contain three leaves, and but one word in each of those leaves, which word was, MODERATION.

He was a person for study as well as action; and hence, notwithstanding the difficulties through which he passed in his youth, he attained unto a notable skill in languages: the Dutch tongue was become almost as vernacular to him as the English; the French tongue he could also manage; the Latin and the Greek he had mastered; but the Hebrew he most of all studied, "Because," he said, "he would see with his own eyes the ancient oracles of God in their native beauty.

History is the story of events, with praise or blame.

History is the story of events, with praise or blame.

I write the wonders of the Christian religion, flying from the depravations of Europe, to the American strand: and, assisted by the Holy Author of that religion, I do, with all conscience of truth, required therein by Him, who is the Truth itself, report the wonderful displays of His infinite power, wisdom, goodness, and faithfulness, wherewith his Divine Providence hath irradiated an Indian wilderness.

Now, upon a deliberate review of these things, his Excellency first reprieved, and then pardoned many of them that had been condemned; and there fell out several strange things that caused the spirit of the country to run as vehemently upon the acquitting of all the accused, as it by mistake ran at first upon the condemning of them.

The self-denying gentleman, who had imployed his commission of governour so little to the disadvantage of the infant-colony at Connecticut, was himself, ere long, by election made governour of that colony.

4. Well may New-England lay claim to the name it wears, and to a room in the tenderest affections of its mother, the happy Island! for as there are few of our towns but what have their name-sakes in England, so the reason why most of our towns are called what they are, is because the chief of the first inhabitants would thus bear up the names of the particular places there from whence they came.

Jewish proverb, Ne Habites in urbe ubi caput urbis est Medicus:

Ubi praeses fuerit Philosophus, ibi Civitas exit Foelix

There was a time when the court of election being, for fear of tumult, held at Cambridge, May 17, 1637, the sectarian part of the country, who had the year before gotten a governour more unto their mind, had a project now to have confounded the election, by demanding that the court would consider a petition then tendered before their proceeding thereunto.

He has sometimes said that he could be willing to walk twelve miles on his feet, on condition he might have an opportunity to preach a sermon: and he seldom did preach a sermon without tears.

This acknowledging disposition in the governor made them all acknowledge, that he was truly "a man of an excellent spirit." In fine, the victories of an Alexander, an Hannibal, or a Caesar over other men, were not so glorious as the victories of this great man over himself, which also at last proved victories over other men.

Fifthly, The schools of learning and religion are so corrupted, as (besides the unsupportable charge of education) most children, even the best, wittiest, and of the fairest hopes, are perverted, corrupted, and utterly overthrown, by the multitude of evil examples and licentious behaviours in these seminaries.