It Is Safe To Make A Choice

Because Men Believe Not In Providence, Therefore They Do So Greedily Scrape And Hoard. They Do Not Believe In Any Reward For Charity, Therefore They Will Part With Nothing.

Chance Never Writ A Legible Book; Chance Never Built A Fair House; Chance Never Drew A Neat Picture; It Never Did Any Of These Things, Nor Ever Will; Nor Can It Be Without Absurdity Supposed Able To Do Them; Which Yet Are Works Very Gross And Rude, Very Easy And Feasible, As It Were, In Comparison To The Production Of A Flower Or A Tree.

No Adversity Is In Kind Or Degree Peculiar To Us; But If We Survey The Conditions Of Other Men (of Our Brethren Everywhere, Of Our Neighbours All About Us), And Compare Our Case With Theirs, We Shall Find That We Have Many Consorts And Associates In Adversity, Most As Ill, Many Far Worse Bestead Than Ourselves; Whence It Must Be A Great Fondness And Perverseness To Be Displeased That We Are Not Exempted From, But Exposed To Bear A Share In The Common Troubles And Burdens Of Mankind.

Incredulity Is Not Wisdom, But The Worst Kind Of Folly. It Is Folly, Because It Causes Ignorance And Mistake, With All The Consequents Of These; And It Is Very Bad, As Being Accompanied With Disingenuity, Obstinacy, Rudeness, Uncharitableness, And The Like Bad Dispositions; From Which Credulity Itself, The Other Extreme Sort Of Folly, Is Exempt.

He That Loveth A Book Will Never Want A Faithful Friend, A Wholesome Counsellor, A Cheerful Companion, An Effectual Comforter. By Study, By Reading, By Thinking, One May Innocently Divert And Pleasantly Entertain Himself, As In All Weathers, So In All Fortunes.