Francis Quarles Quotes

       Francis Quarles
       1592-1644
      
       Francis Quarles, an English poet, was born in Romford, Essex, and baptised there on 8 May 1592. Francis was entered at Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1608, and subsequently at Lincoln's Inn. He was made cupbearer to the Princess Elizabeth, in 1613, remaining abroad for some years; and before 1629 he was appointed secretary to Ussher, the primate of Ireland.
      
       Francis traced his ancestry to a family settled in England before the Norman Conquest with a long history in royal service.
      
       The work by which Quarles is best known, the Emblems, was originally published in 1635, with grotesque illustrations engraved by William Marshall and others. The Emblems was immensely popular with the common people, but the critics of the 17th and 18th centuries had no mercy on Quarles. Sir John Suckling in his Sessions of the Poets disrespectfully alluded to him as he "that makes God speak so big in's poetry."

Beware of him that is slow to anger; for when it is long coming, it is the stronger when it comes, and the longer kept. Abused patience turns to fury.     Topics: Anger He that hath no cross deserves no crown.     Topics: Apathy, The Cross The average person's ear weighs what you are, not what you were.     Topics: Character There is no such merchant as the charitable man; he gives trifles which he could not keep, to receive treasure which he cannot lose.     Topics: Charity He that gives all, though but little gives much; because God looks not to the quantity of the gift, but to the quality of the givers.     Topics: Charity Let the lips of the poor be the trumpet of thy gift, lest in seeking applause, thou lose thy reward.     Topics: Charity, Rewards Nothing is more pleasing to God than an open hand, and a closed mouth.     Topics: Charity, Humility In giving of thine alms inquire not so much into the person, as his necessity. God looks not so much on the merits of him that requires, as to the manner of him that relieves. If the man deserve not, thou hast given to humanity.     Topics: Charity Proportion thy charity to the strength of thine estate, lest God in anger proportion thine estate to the weakness of thy charity.     Topics: Charity, Selfishness, Weakness Beware of drunkenness, lest all good men beware of thee. Where drunkenness reigns, there reason is an exile, virtue a stranger, and God an enemy; blasphemy is wit, oaths are rhetoric, and secrets are proclamations.     Topics: Drunkenness He that is a drunkard is qualified for all vice.     Topics: Drunkenness What treasures here do Mammon's sons behold! Yet know that all that which glitters is not gold.     Topics: Finances