British author & Freemason (1726-1779)
A single life is doubtless preferable to a married one, where prudence and affection do not accompany the choice; but where they do, there is no terrestrial happiness equal to the married state.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
Meditation is the life of virtue, as virtue is the life of the soul. It is the conduit by which a happy and delightful communication is maintained between God and the soul; through which the graces and blessings of God descend to the soul, and through which the ardour, the praises, and adoration of the soul, ascend to God.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
Since misfortunes cannot be avoided, let them be generously borne; it is not for any sort of men to expect an exemption from the common lot of mankind; and no person is truly great, but he that keeps up the same dignity of mind in all conditions.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
Life, how sweet soever it seems, is a draught mingled with bitter ingredients; some drink deeper than others before they come at them: But, if they do not swim at the top for youth to taste them, it is ten to one but old age will find them thick at the bottom. And it is the employment of faith and patience, and the work of wisdom and virtue, to teach us to drink the sweet part down with pleasure and thankfulness, and to swallow the bitter without reluctance.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
Riches naturally gain a man a favourable reception in the world, and give merit a double lustre, when a person is endowed with it; and supply its place, in great measure, when it is absent. Tis wonderful to observe what airs of superiority fools and knaves, with large possessions, give themselves above men of the greatest merit in poverty.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
Many people marry first, and have to learn afterwards the duty of a married state, and the comforts and inconveniences that attend it; and it is not uncommon to meet with persons whose depraved judgments encourage them to think it immaterial, whether or not love proceeds tying the matrimonial knot, looking upon it as a matter of future expectation.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
Music is a science that teaches how sound, under certain measures of time and tune, may be produced, and so ordered and disposed, as, either in consonance, or succession, or both, they may raise various sensations from the height of rapture even to melancholy or distraction.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
Various are men's dispositions and abilities, and by their different characters, they discover different degrees of perfection.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
In any adversity that happens to us in the world, we ought to consider that misery and affliction are not less natural than snow and hail, storm and tempest: And it were as reasonable to hope for a year without winter, as for a life without trouble.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
There is nothing in the female sex more graceful or becoming than Modesty. It adds charm to their beauty, and gives a new softness to their sex. Without it simplicity and innocence appear rude; reading and good sense, masculine; wit and humour, lascivious. This is so necessary a quality for pleasing, that the loose part of the sex, whose study it is to ensnare men's hearts, never fail to support the appearance of what they know is essential to that end.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
One advantage gained by calamities, is to know how to sympathize with others in the like troubles.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
We generally fancy ourselves more miserable than we are, for want of taking a true estimate of things; wherefore we fly into transports without reason, and judge of the happiness or calamity of human life, by false lights.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
In the choice of a wife, we ought to make use of our ears, and not our eyes.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
The excess if delight palls our appetites rather than pleases.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
It is a comfort to the miserable to have companions in their sad state. This may seem to be a kind of malicious satisfaction, that one man derives from the Misfortunes of another, but the philosophy of this reflection stands upon another foundation; for our comfort does not arise from others being miserable, but from this inference upon the balance, that we suffer only the lot of human nature, and as we are happy or miserable compared with others, so others are miserable or happy compared with us.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
It is time enough to bear a misfortune when it comes, without anticipating it; for why should we torment ourselves with what may fall out, perhaps, twenty years hence, or never.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
The duty of Parents to their Children does not terminate in giving them existence.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
There is no accident so exquisitely unfortunate, but wise men will make some advantage of it.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
Make good use of Time ... reflect that yesterday cannot be recalled, tomorrow cannot be assured, today is only yours, which if you procrastinate you lose.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
If we would trace our descents, we should find all slaves to come from princes and all princes from slaves: But fortune has turned all things topsy-turvy, in a long story of revolutions.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine