17 Richard Hooker Quotes

Richard Hooker quotes

1. Of Law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world. All things in heaven and earth do her homage,-the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power.

2. That to live by one man's will became the cause of all men's misery.

3. Words must be taken according to the matter whereof they are uttered.

4. There is a wheel within a wheel; a secret sacred wheel of Providence (most visible in marriages), guided by His hand that allows not the race to the swift nor bread to the wise, nor good wives to good men: and He that can bring good out of evil (for mortals are blind to this reason) only knows why this blessing was denied to patient Job, to meek Moses, and to our as meek and patient Mr Hooker.

   Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

5. I observe there is in Mr. Hooker no affected language; but a grave, comprehensive, clear manifestation of reason, and that backed with the authority of the Scriptures, the fathers and schoolmen, and with all law both sacred and civil.

1. From here it sounds great to say we'll all get together soon, but all I know is this: you can call me fifty days or fifty years from now and I'll be glad to see you.

2. Think of your child, then, not as dead, but as living; not as a flower that has withered, but as one that is transplanted, and touched by a Divine hand, is blooming in richer colors and sweeter shades than those of earth.

3. God is no captious sophister, eager to trip us up whenever we say amiss, but a courteous tutor, ready to amend what, in our weakness or our ignorance, we say ill, and to make the most of what we say aright.

4. Even ministers of good things are like torches, a light to others, waste and destruction to themselves.

5. Man doth seek a triple perfection: first a sensual, consisting in those things which very life itself requireth either as necessary supplements, or as beauties and ornaments thereof; then an intellectual, consisting in those things which none underneath man is either capable of or acquainted with; lastly a spiritual and divine, consisting in those things whereunto we tend by supernatural means here, but cannot here attain unto them.

6. Angels are unsatisfiable in their longing to do by all means all manner of good unto all the creatures, ...especially the children of men.

7. Of two Evils we take the less.

8. The reason why the simpler sort are moved with authority, is the consciousness of their own ignorance; whereby it cometh to pass that having learned men in admiration, they rather fear to dislike them than know wherefore they should allow and follow their judgments. Contrariwise with them that are skilful authority is much more strong and forcible; because they only are able to discern how just cause there is why to some men's authority so much should be attributed.

9. Time is one of the essential ingredients. Each day brings 86,400 seconds. Whatever isn't used is gone forever.

10. So that every man lawfully ordained must bring a bow which hath two strings, a title of present right and another to provide for future possibility or chance.

11. For men to be tied and led by authority, as it were with a kind of captivity of judgment, and though there be reason to the contrary not to listen unto it, but to follow like beasts the first in the herd, they know not, nor care not whither, this were brutish.

12. See we not plainly that obedience of creatures unto the law of nature is the stay of the whole world?