Isaac Watts quotes:

+1
Share
Pin
Like
Send
Share
  • Learning to trust is one of life's most difficult tasks.

  • Do not hover always on the surface of things, nor take up suddenly with mere appearances; but penetrate into the depth of matters, as far as your time and circumstances allow, especially in those things which relate to your profession.

  • For Satan always finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.

  • How doth the little busy bee Improve each shining hour, And gather honey all the day From every opening flower!

  • Instructors should not only be skilful in those sciences which they teach, but have skill in the method of teaching, and patience in the practice.

  • Speak softly. It is far better to rule by love than fear.Speak softly. Let no harsh words mar the good we may do here.

  • I would not change my blest estate for all the world calls good or great.

  • Learn good-humor, never to oppose without just reason; abate some degree of pride and moroseness.

  • The very substance which last week was grazing in the field, waving in the milk pail, or growing in the garden, is now become part of the man.

  • Not all the blood of beasts On Jewish altars slain, Could give the guilty conscience peace, Or wash away the stain: But Christ, the heav'nly Lamb, Takes all our sins away, A sacrifice of nobler nam' And richer blood than they.

  • He rules the world with truth and grace, and makes the nations prove, the glories of His righteousness and wonders of His love.

  • In works of labour or of skillI would be busy too:For Satan finds some mischief stillFor idle hands to do.

  • Our life contains a thousand springs, And dies if one be gone. Strange! that a harp of thousand strings Should keep in tune so long.

  • Tis the voice of the sluggard; I heard him complain, you have waked me too soon, I must slumber again.

  • How shall polluted mortals dare To sing Thy glory or Thy grace Beneath Thy feet we lie afar And see but shadows of Thy face."

  • Poesy and oratory omit things not essential, and insert little beautiful digressions, in order to place everything in the most effective light.

  • But, children, you should never let Such angry passions rise; Your little hands were never made To tear each other's eyes.

  • I would not change my native landFor rich Peru with all her gold

  • Once a day, especially in the early years of life and study, call yourselves to an account what new ideas, what new proposition or truth you have gained, what further confirmation of known truths, and what advances you have made in any part of knowledge.

  • Let dogs delight to bark and bite, for God hath made them so.

  • It would be of great use to us to form our deliberate judgments of persons and things in the calmest and serenest hours of life, when the passions of nature are all silent, and the mind enjoys its most perfect composure.

  • A dogmatical spirit inclines a man to be censorious of his neighbors. Every one of his opinions appears to him written, as it were, with sunbeams, and he grows angry that his neighbors do not see it in the same light. He is tempted to disdain his correspondents as men of low and dark understandings because they do not believe what he does.

  • The eyes of a man in the jaundice make yellow observations on everything; and the soul tinctured with any passion diffuses a false color over the appearance of things.

  • When general observations are drawn from so many particulars as to become certain and indisputable, these are jewels of knowledge.

  • The child taught to believe any occurrence a good or evil omen, or any day of the week lucky, hath a wide inroad made upon the soundness of his understanding.

  • Every one of his opinions appears to himself to be written with sunbeams.

  • To see the dull indifference, the negligent and thoughtless air that sits upon the faces of a whole assembly, while the psalm is upon their lips, might even tempt a charitable observer to suspect the fervency of their inward religion.

  • Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a present far too small: Love so amazing, so divine Demands my soul, my life, my all.

  • The tall, the wise, the reverend head Must lie as low as ours.

  • Acquaint yourself with your own ignorance.

  • Satirists do expose their own ill nature.

  • How glad the heathens would have been, That worship idols, wood and stone, If they the book God had seen.

  • Tis the voice of the sluggard I heard him complain,You have wak'd me too soon, I must slumber again.

  • When a false argument puts on the appearance of a true one, then it is properly called a sophism or fallacy.

  • Our God, our help in ages past,Our hope for years to come,Our shelter from the stormy blast,And our eternal home.

  • Affect not little shifts and subterfuges to avoid the force of an argument.

  • To be angry about trifles is mean and childish; to rage and be furious is brutish; and to maintain perpetual wrath is akin to the practice and temper of devils; but to prevent and suppress rising resentment is wise and glorious, is manly and divine.

  • Tell of His wondrous faithfulness, and sound his power abroad; sing the sweet promise of His grace, the love and truth of God.

  • Some persons believe everything that their kindred, their parents, and their tutors believe. The veneration and the love which they have for their ancestors incline them to swallow down all their opinions at once, without examining what truth or falsehood there is in them. Men take their principles by inheritance, and defend them as they would their estates, because they are born heirs to them.

  • Vice and virtue chiefly imply the relation of our actions to men in this world; sin and holiness rather imply their relation to God and the other world.

  • For one drop calls another down, till we are drowned in seas of grief.

  • Flies, worms, and flowers exceed me still.

  • Acquire a government over your ideas, that they may come down when they are called, and depart when they are bidden.

  • When I survey the wondrous cross On which the Prince of Glory died, My richest gain I count but loss, And pour contempt on all my pride.

  • Do not spend the day in gathering flowers by the way side, lest night come upon you before you arrive at your journey's end, and then you will not reach it.

  • The fondness we have for self furnishes another long rank of prejudices.

  • Preserve your conscience always soft and sensitive. If but one sin force its way into that tender part of the soul and dwell there, the road is paved for a thousand iniquities.

  • Maintain a constant watch at all times against a dogmatical spirit: fix not your assent to any proposition in a firm and unalterable manner, till you have some firm and unalterable ground for it, and till you have arrived at some clear and sure evidence.

  • Love is amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.

  • Forbid it Lord that I should boast, save in the death of Christ, my God: All the vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice them to his blood.

  • There's not a plant or flower below but makes Thy glories known, And clouds arise, and tempests blow by order from Thy throne; While all that borrows life from Thee is ever in Thy care; And everywhere that we can be, Thou, God art present there.

  • Now shall my inward joys arise, And burst into a song; Almighty love inspires my heart, And pleasure tunes my tongue.

  • Roses grow on thorns and honey wears a sting.

  • Death, like an overflowing stream, Sweeps us away: our life's a dream,...

  • And he that does one fault at first And lies to hide it, makes it two.

  • Abandon the secret chamber and the spiritual life will decay.

  • In matters of equity between man and man, our Saviour has taught us to put my neighbor in place of myself, and myself in place of my neighbor.

  • The stars, that in their courses roll, Have much instruction given; But Thy good Word informs my soul How I may climb to Heaven.

  • Reason is the glory of human nature, and one of the chief eminences whereby we are raised above our fellow-creatures, the brutes, in this lower world.

  • Though reading and conversation may furnish us with many ideas of men and things, yet it is our own meditation must form our judgment.

  • Whatever brawls disturb the street, There should be peace at home.

  • It is not to be expected that we should love God supremely if we have not known him to be more desirable than all other things.

  • Disputation carries away the mind from that calm and sedate temper which is so necessary to contemplate truth.

  • I love the soul that dares tread the temptations of his years beneath his youthful feet.

  • Do not be deceived; happiness and enjoyment do not lie in wicked ways.

  • Must I be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease, while others fought to win the prize and sailed through bloody seas?

  • Everyday is a birthday; every moment of it is new to us; we are born again, renewed for fresh work and endeavor.

  • Tis true my form is something odd But blaming me is blaming God Could I create myself anew I would not fail in pleasing you. If I could reach from pole to pole Or grasp the ocean with a span I would be measured by the soul The mind's the standard of the man.

  • From all who dwell below the skiesLet the Creator's praise arise;Let the Redeemer's name be sungThrough every land, by every tongue.

  • So, when a raging fever burns, We shift from side to side by turns; And 't is a poor relief we gain To change the place, but keep the pain.

  • To God the Father, God the Son, And God the Spirit, Three in One, Be honour, praise, and glory given By all on earth, and all in heaven.

  • Prayer is a sacred and appointed means to obtain all the blessings that we want, whether they relate to this life or the life to come.

  • The tulip and the butterfly Appear in gayer coats than I: Let me be dressed fine as I will, Flies, worms, and flowers exceed me still.

  • To prevent and suppress rising resentment is wise and glorious, is manly and divine.

  • What's amiss I'll strive to mend,And endure what can't be mended.

  • Joy to the world, the Lord is come / Let earth receive her King / Let every heart, prepare him room / And heaven and nature sing.

  • No, I'll repine at death no more, But with a cheerful gasp resign To the cold dungeon of the ground These dying, withering limbs of mine. Let worms devour my wasting flesh, And crumble all my bones to dust:-- My God shall raise my frame anew, At the revival of the just.

  • Ten thousand things there are which we believe merely upon the authority or credit of those who have spoken or written them.

  • Custom and authority are no sure evidence of truth.

  • It was a saying of the ancients, "Truth lies in a well;" and to carry on this metaphor, we may justly say that logic does supply us with steps, whereby we may go down to reach the water.

  • Whene'er I take my walks abroad,How many poor I see!What shall I render to my GodFor all his gifts to me?

  • Logic helps us to strip off the outward disguise of things, and to behold and judge of them in their own nature.

  • As a man may be eating all day, and for want of digestion is never nourished, so these endless readers may cram themselves in vain with intellectual food.

  • Salvation, O the joyful sound! 'Tis pleasure to our ears; A sov'reign balm for ev'ry wound, A cordial for our fears.

  • In Job and the Psalms we shall find more sublime ideas, more elevated language, than in any of the heathen versifiers of Greece or Rome.

  • Academical disputation gives vigor and briskness to the mind thus exercised, and relieves the languor of private study and meditation.

  • I write not for your farthing, but to try / How I your farthing writers, may outvie.

  • Lord, I ascribe it to thy grace,And not to chance as others do,That I was born of Christian race,And not a Heathen, or a Jew.

  • Earth, thou great footstool of our God, who reigns on high; thou fruitful source of all our raiment, life, and food; our house, our parent, and our nurse.

  • Birds in their little nests agree; And 'tis a shameful sight When children of one family Fall out, and chide, and fight.

  • There is a land of pure delight, Where saints immortal reign; Infinite day excludes the night, And pleasures banish pain.

  • What bliss will fill the ransomed souls, when they in glory dwell, to see the sinner as he rolls, in quenchless flames of hell.

  • For sov'reign pow'r reign not alone, Grace is the partner of the throne; Thy grace and justice mighty Lord, Shall well divide our last reward.

  • Was it for crimes that I had done He groaned upon the tree? Amazing pity! Grace unknown! And love beyond degree!

  • No science is speedily learned by the noblest genius without tuition.

  • Nothing tends so much to enlarge the mind as traveling.

  • Fancy and humour, early and constantly indulged in, may expect an old age overrun with follies.

  • Two sentiments alone suffice for man, were he to live the age of the rocks - love, and the contemplation of the Deity.

  • Hush! my dear, lie still and slumber, Holy angels guard thy bed! Heavenly blessing without number Gently falling on thy head.

  • Some have a violent and turgid manner of talking and thinking; they are always in extremes, and pronounce concerning everything in the superlative.

  • A thousand ages in Thy sight Are like an evening gone; Short as the watch that ends the night Before the rising sun.

  • In books, or work, or healthful play.

  • Do not expect to arrive at certainty in every subject which you pursue. There are a hundred things wherein we mortals. . . must be content with probability, where our best light and reasoning will reach no farther.

  • Kind words toward those you daily meet, Kind words and actions right, Will make this life of ours most sweet, Turn darkness into night.

  • There is a dreadful Hell, And everlasting pains; There sinners must with devils dwell In darkness, fire, and chains.

  • A flower, when offered in the bud, is no vain sacrifice.

  • I have been there, and still would go; 'T is like a little heaven below.

  • Talking over the things which you have read with your companions fixes them on the mind.

  • Order my footsteps by Thy Word and make my heart sincere; let sin have no dominion, Lord, but keep my conscience clear.

  • Sweet is the day of sacred rest; No mortal cares shall seize my breast; O may my heart in tune be found Like David's harp of solemn sound.

  • At books, or work, or healthy play, Let all my years be passed; That I may give for every day A good account at last.

  • When I can read my title clear To mansions in the skies, I'll bid farewell to every fear, And wipe my weeping eyes.

  • There's no repentance in the grave.

  • Dear Lord. I give myself away. I've nothing else to give.

  • In common discourse we denominate persons and things according to the major part of their character; he is to be called a wise man who has but few follies.

  • thanks to my friends for their care in my breeding, Who taught me betimes to love working and reading.

  • The passions are the gales of life; and it is religion only that can prevent them from rising into a tempest.

  • A hermit who has been shut up in his cell in a college has contracted a sort of mould and rust upon his soul.

  • Study detains the mind by the perpetual occurrence of something new, which may gratefully strike the imagination.

  • When two or three sciences are pursued at the same time if one of them be dry, as logic, let another be more entertaining, to secure the mind from weariness.

+1
Share
Pin
Like
Send
Share