William Temple

Who was William Temple?

Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet was an English statesman and essayist.

Famous Quotes:

• When all is done, human life is, at the greatest and the best, but like a froward child, that must be played with and humored a little to keep it quiet till it falls asleep, and then the care is over.
• Our present time is indeed a criticizing and critical time, hovering between the wish, and the inability to believe. Our complaints are like arrows shot up into the air at no target: and with no purpose they only fall back upon our own heads and destroy ourselves.
• The first ingredient in conversation is truth, the next good sense, the third good humor, and the fourth wit.
• We shall say without hesitation that the atheist who is moved by love is moved by the Spirit of God; an atheist who lives by love is saved by his faith in the God whose existence (under that name) he denies.
• Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed.
• The best rules to form a young man, are, to talk little, to hear much, to reflect alone upon what has passed in company, to distrust one's own opinions, and value others that deserve it.
• The abilities of man must fall short on one side or the other, like too scanty a blanket when you are abed. If you pull it upon your shoulders, your feet are left bare; if you thrust it down to your feet, your shoulders are uncovered.
• Who ever converses among old books will be hard to please among the new.
• Books, like proverbs, receive their chief value from the stamp and esteem of the ages through which they have passed
• There cannot live a more unhappy creature than an ill-natured old man, who is neither capable of receiving pleasures, nor sensible of conferring them on others.