Table Talk of John Selden

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Quaritch, 1927 - Antiquarians - 200 pages
 

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Page 75 - Marriage is a desperate thing. The frogs in jEsop were extreme wise ; they had a great mind to some water, but they would not leap into the well, because they could not get out again.
Page 44 - A gallant man is above ill words : An example we have in the old lord of Salisbury, who was a great wise man. Stone had called some lord about court, fool; the lord complains, and has Stone whipped ; Stone cries, " I might have called my lord of Salisbury fool often enough, before he would have had me whipped.
Page 178 - He was of so stupendous learning in all kinds and in all languages (as may appear in his excellent and transcendent writings), that a man would have thought he had been entirely conversant among books, and had never spent an hour but in reading and writing...
Page 10 - James's time took an excellent way. That Part of the Bible was given to him who was most excellent in such a Tongue (as the Apocrypha to Andrew Downs) and then they met together, and one read the Translation, the rest holding in their Hands some Bible, either of the learned Tongues, or French, Spanish, Italian, &c. If they found any Fault, they spoke; if not, he read on.
Page 35 - Some men make it a case of conscience, whether a man may have a pigeon-house, because his pigeons eat other folks corn. But there is no such thing as conscience in the business : the matter is, whether he be a man of such quality, that the state allows him to have a dove-house ; if so, there's an end of the business ; his pigeons have a right to eat where they please themselves.
Page 178 - Stand forth my object, then. You that have been Ever at home, yet have all countries seen ; And like a compass, keeping one foot still Upon your centre, do your circle fill Of general knowledge; watch'd men, manners too, Heard what times past have said, seen what ours do!
Page 145 - Devils in his head, and he perceived two of them were gone, with that which I had given him, but the other two troubled him still. Well...
Page 40 - ... not in the market-place. They do nothing but what may be done by art; they make the devil fly out of the window in the likeness of a bat, or a rat. Why do they not hold him ? Why, in the likeness of...
Page 126 - There must be some laymen in the synod, to overlook the clergy, lest they spoil the civil work ; just as when the good woman puts a cat into the milk-house to kill a mouse, she sends her maid to look after the cat, lest the cat should eat up the cream.
Page 61 - A king is a thing men have made for their own sakes, for quietness sake : just as in a family one man is appointed to buy the meat ; if every man should buy, or if there were many buyers, they would never agree ; one would buy what the other liked not, or what the other had bought before ; so there would be a confusion. But that charge being committed to one, he, according to his discretion, pleases all ; if they have not what they would have one day, they shall have it the next, or something as...

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