Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

John Ray or Wray

British Naturalist, Philosopher, Theologian and Collector of Proverbs

"A friend in need is a friend indeed."

"In time of prosperity friends will be plenty. In times of adversity not one among twenty."

"Better to be idle than not well occupied."

"The day has eyes, the night has ears."

"Beauty is power; a smile is its sword. "

"Diseases are the tax on pleasures. "

"Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there."

"Industry is fortune's right hand, and frugality its left. "

"Nothing is invented and perfected at the same time."

"Guilt is always jealous."

"Many without punishment, none without sin."

"A wonder it must be, that there should be any man found so stupid as to persuade himself that this most beautiful world could be produced by the fortuitous concourse of atoms."

"No better cosmetics than a severe temperance and purity, modesty and humility, a gracious temper and calmness of spirit; no true beauty without the signature of these graces in the very countenance."

"The heart is the first part that quickens, and the last that dies."

"A multitude of words doth rather obscure than illustrate, they being a burden to the memory, and the first apt to be forgotten, before we come to the last. So that he that uses many words for the explaining of any subject, doth, like the cuttle-fish, hide himself, for the most part, in his own ink. "