In all their jollity in this world, the wicked are but as a book fairly bound, which when it is opened is full of nothing but tragedies. So when the book of their consciences shall be once opened, there is nothing to be read but lamentations and woes.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that outward appearances of joy can mask deep inner sorrow and moral failures.
Richard Sibbes uses the metaphor of a well-bound book to illustrate that those who appear to be happy and carefree ('the wicked') often harbor tragic truths within. This suggests that superficial joy can be deceiving, and when one's inner thoughts and conscience are examined, what may be revealed are feelings of regret and sorrow.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the nature of happiness and morality in a philosophy class.
When a man is to travel into a far country...one staff in his hand may comfortably support him, but a bundle of staves would be troublesome. Thus a competency of these outward things may happily help us in the way to heaven, whereas abundance may be hurtful.
It would be a good contest amongst Christians, one to labour to give no offence, and the other to labour to take none. The best men are severe to themselves, tender over others.
Those that look to be happy must first look to be holy.
The way to cover our sin is to uncover it by confession.
There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us.
Faith, whereby especially Christ rules, sets the soul so high that it looks down on all other things as far below, as having represented to it, by the Spirit of Christ, riches, honor, beauty and pleasures of a higher nature.
Solitude is the place where we can connect with profound bonds that are deeper than the emergency bonds of fear and anger.
How can non-existence get sick of itself? Everytime you wake up, you appear again out of nowhere. And so does everything else. Death just means the replacement of the usual morning waking with something else, something quite impossible even to think about. We don't even have the instrument to do it, because our mind & our world are the same thing.
Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life.
The network told me to get rid of Number One, the woman first lieutenant, and also get rid of 'that Martian fellow'... meaning, of course, Spock. I knew I couldn't keep both, so I gave the stoicism of the female officer to Spock, and married the actress who played Number One. Thank God it wasn't the other way around. I mean Leonard's cute, but...
Hate demands existence, and he who hates has to show his hate in appropriate actions and behaviors; in a sense, he has to become hate. That is why the Americans have substituted discrimination for lynching.
People took what they wanted, they clutched at coincidences, the few there were, and made a life from them. . . . Choices are made in brief seconds and paid for in the time that remains.
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