“Words must be taken according to the matter whereof they are uttered.”
Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie (1597), Book IV.11.7, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
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Richard Hooker 6
English bishop and Anglican Divine 1554–1600Related quotes

Rex v. Inhabitants of Burton-Bradstock (1765), Burrow (Settlement Cases), 536.

"Proclamation 3560 — Thanksgiving Day, 1963" (5 November 1963) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9511<!-- Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project -->
1963
Context: Today we give our thanks, most of all, for the ideals of honor and faith we inherit from our forefathers — for the decency of purpose, steadfastness of resolve and strength of will, for the courage and the humility, which they possessed and which we must seek every day to emulate. As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.
Let us therefore proclaim our gratitude to Providence for manifold blessings — let us be humbly thankful for inherited ideals — and let us resolve to share those blessings and those ideals with our fellow human beings throughout the world.

To Robert Cecil when he said, in her final illness (March 1603), that she must go to bed.

Source: The Bait Of Satan: Living Free from the Deadly Trap of Offense

Quotes, Our Larger Tasks (2002)
Context: We must acknowledge that the utter poverty of hundreds of millions of people is not a matter for compassion only, but a threat in the long term to the growth and vigor of the global economic system. We must see it as a part of our charge to help create economic opportunity so that the gap between the richest and poorest does not grow ever wider.

Doe et dem. Dacre v. Dacre (1798), 2 Bos. & Pull 259.