Jeremy Collier (/ˈkɒliər/; 23 September 1650 – 26 April 1726) was an English theatre critic, non-juror bishop and theologian.
Rhetoric is nothing but reason well dressed and argument put in order.
A man may as well expect to grow stronger by always eating as wiser by always reading.
What can be more honorable than to have courage enough to execute the commands of reason and conscience,--to maintain the dignity of our nature, and the station assigned us?
Without discretion, people may be overlaid with unreasonable affection, and choked with too much nourishment.
Dangerous principles impose upon our understanding, emasculate our spirits, and spoil our temper.
Envy is of all others the most ungratifying and disconsolate passion. There is power for ambition, pleasure for luxury, and pelf even for covetousness; but envy gets no reward but vexation.
Modesty was designed by Providence as a guard to virtue, and that it might be always at hand it is wrought into the mechanism of the body. It is likewise proportioned to the occasions of life, and strongest in youth when passion is so too.
Passing too eagerly upon a provocation loses the guard and lays open the body; calmness and leisure and deliberation do the business much better.
The abuse of a thing is no argument against the use of it.
Temperance keeps the senses clear and unembarrassed, and makes them seize the object with more keenness and satisfaction. It appears with life in the face, and decorum in the person; it gives you the command of your head, and secures your health, and preserves you in a condition for business.
Self-conceit is a weighty quality, and will sometimes bring down the scale when there is nothing else in it. It magnifies a fault beyond proportion, and swells every omission into an outrage.
Heroes are a mischievous race.
Flattery is an ensnaring quality, and leaves a very dangerous impression. It swells a man's imagination, entertains his vanity, and drives him to a doting upon his own person.
There are few things reason can discover with so much certainty and ease as its own insufficiency.
Not that the moderns are born with more wit than their predecessors, but, finding the world better furnished at their coming into it, they have more leisure for new thoughts, more light to direct them, and more hints to work upon.
The more we sink into the infirmities of age, the nearer we are to immortal youth. All people are young in the other world. That state is an eternal spring, ever fresh and flourishing. Now, to pass from midnight into noon on the sudden, to be decrepit one minute and all spirit and activity the next, must be a desirable change. To call this dying is an abuse of language.
As the language of the face is universal, so 'tis very comprehensive; no laconism can reach it: 'Tis the short hand of the mind, and crowds a great deal in a little room
Intemperance is a dangerous companion. It throws many people off their guard, betrays them to a great many indecencies, to ruinous passions, to disadvantages in fortune; makes them discover secrets, drive foolish bargains, engage in play, and often to stagger from the tavern to the stews.
People's opinions of themselves are legible in their countenances.
Avoid all affectation and singularity. What is according to nature is best, and what is contrary to it is always distasteful. Nothing is graceful that is not our own.