Motherhood Quote by Jeremy Taylor

Taylor turns moral psychology into a family drama: action gives birth to habit, then habit returns the favor, feeding the very will that made it. It is a cunning bit of persuasion from a 17th-century Anglican cleric who needed people to believe that virtue wasn’t just a lofty state you prayed for, but a craft you practiced into existence. In a culture obsessed with sin, discipline, and the management of the self, he offers a technology of character: do the thing first, even when you don’t “feel” like the kind of person who does it, and the feeling will come later wearing a sturdier face.

The metaphor does two jobs at once. “Daughters of action” makes habit sound natural and inevitable, not a harsh regimen. Then the twist - the daughters “nurse their mother” - smuggles in the real claim: repeated behavior doesn’t merely reflect who you are; it actively sustains and enlarges you. That’s the subtext aimed at the wavering believer (or the chronic procrastinator): stop waiting for inner transformation as permission to act. Acting is the transformation.

“After her image, but far more beautiful and prosperous” is Taylor’s theological optimism with a salesman's edge. Habit doesn’t just replicate the original act; it improves it, polishing rough obedience into something almost graceful. He’s also quietly warning that the same mechanism works in reverse: vice has the same reproductive power. Taylor’s intent is to make daily choices feel consequential, because in his world they weren’t lifestyle tweaks; they were the raw material of salvation.