Thomas Tusser Quotations

At Christmas play and make good cheer, for Christmas comes but once a year.

A fool and his money are soon parted.

Seek home for rest, for home is best.

Who quick be to borrow and slow be to pay, their credit is naught, go they ever so gay.

Make hunger thy sauce, as a medicine for health.

God sendeth and giveth both mouth and meat.

Who goeth a borrowing/ Goeth a sorrowing./ Few lend (but fools)/ Their working tools.

Yet true it is, as cow chews cud,/ And trees at spring do yield forth bud,/ Except wind stands as never it stood,/ It is an ill wind turns none to good.

A fool and his money be soon at debate (Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry)

Some respite to husbands the weather may send,/ But housewives' affairs have never an end.

In doing of either, let wit bear a stroke,/ For buying or selling of pig in a poke.

A fool and his money be soon at debate

Sing hey! Sing hey! For Christmas Day; Twine mistletoe and holly. For a friendship glows In winter snows, And so let's all be jolly! At Christmas play and make good cheer, For Christmas comes but once a year

Who goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing.

For the first fourteen years for a rod they do while for the next as a pearl in the world they do shine. For the next trim beauty beginneth to swerve. For the next matrons or drudges they serve. For the next doth crave a staff for a stay. For the next a bier to fetch them away.

Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man.

Time tries the troth in everything.

Provide of thine own, to have all things at hand; Less work and the workman, unoccupied, stand. Make dry over-head both hovel and shack. Wash sheep (for the better) where water doth run; Let him go cleanly, and dry in the sun. Thy houses and and barns would be looked upon; And all things a[...]ed, ere harvest come on. At midsummer, down with the brambles and brakes; And after, abroad, with thy forks and thy rakes; Set movers a mowing, where meadow is grown; The longer now standing, the worse to be mown.

If a garden require it, now trench it ye may, one trench not a yard, from another go lay; Which being well filled with muck by and by, to cover with mould, for a season to lie.

In March and in April from morning till night In sowing and seeding good housewives delight.

As order is heavenly, where quiet is had, so error is hell, or a mischief as bad.

Ill husbandry lieth In prison for debt: Good husbandry spieth Where profit get.

Ill husbandry braggeth To go with the best: Good husbandry baggeth Up gold in his chest.

Dry August and warm, Doth harvest no harm.

A fool and his money are soon parted. - Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry.

Tide flowing is feared, for many a thing, Great danger to such as be sick, it doth bring; Sea ebb, by long ebbing, some respite doth give, And sendeth good comfort, to such as shall live.

The stone that is rolling can gather no moss;For master and servant oft changing is loss.

Look ere thou leap, see ere thou go.

Except wind stands as it never stood It is an ill wind turns none to good.

What a greater crime. Than loss of time.

God sendeth and giveth both mouth and the meat.

Fear God, and offend not the Prince nor his laws, and keep thyself out of the magistrate's claws.

In harvest time, harvest folk, servants and all Should make, all together, good cheer in the hall Once ended the harvest, let none be beguiled Please such as did help thee, man, woman and child.

February, fill the dyke with what thou dost like.

Who goeth a borrowing. Goeth a sorrowing.

Sweet April showers do spring May flowers.