Isaac Barrow Quotations

I pass by that it is very culpable to be facetious in obscene and smutty matters.

That men should live honestly, quietly, and comfortably together, it is needful that they should live under a sense of God's will, and in awe of the divine power, hoping to please God, and fearing to offend Him, by their behaviour respectively.

Smiling always with a never fading serenity of countenance, and flourishing in an immortal youth.

Let us consider that swearing is a sin of all others peculiarly clamorous, and provocative of Divine judgment.

Facetiousness is allowable when it is the most proper instrument of exposing things apparently base and vile to due contempt.

He who loveth a book will never want a faithful friend, a wholesome counsellor, a cheerful companion, or an effectual comforter.

It is safe to make a choice of your thoughts, scarcely ever safe to express them all.

That in affairs of very considerable importance men should deal with one another with satisfaction of mind, and mutual confidence, they must receive competent assurances concerning the integrity, fidelity, and constancy each of other.

That justice should be administered between men, it is necessary that testimonies of fact be alleged; and that witnesses should apprehend themselves greatly obliged to discover the truth, according to their conscience, in dark and doubtful cases.

If men are wont to play with swearing anywhere, can we expect they should be serious and strict therein at the bar or in the church.

Even private persons in due season, with discretion and temper, may reprove others, whom they observe to commit sin, or follow bad courses, out of charitable design, and with hope to reclaim them.

Whence it is somewhat strange that any men from so mean and silly a practice should expect commendation, or that any should afford regard thereto; the which it is so far from meriting, that indeed contempt and abhorrence are due to it.

Because men believe not in Providence, therefore they do so greedily scrape and hoard. They do not believe in any reward for charity, therefore they will part with nothing.

No man speaketh, or should speak, of his prince, that which he hath not weighed whether it will consist with that veneration which should be preserved inviolate to him.

Wherefore for the public interest and benefit of human society it is requisite that the highest obligations possible should be laid upon the consciences of men.

Men do truly more render themselves despicable than others when, without just ground, or reasonable occasion, they do attack others in this way.

He that loveth a book will never want for a faithful friend, a wholesome counselor, a cheerful companion, an effectual comforter

If we desire to live securely, comfortably, and quietly, that by all honest means we should endeavor to purchase the good will of all men, and provoke no man's enmity needlessly; since any man's love may be useful, and every man's hatred is dangerous.

Poetry is a kind of ingenious nonsense (Spence, Anecdotes

An accomplished mathematician, i.e. a most wretched orator.

Upright simplicity is the deepest wisdom, and perverse craft the merest shallowness.

He that loves a book will never want a [close] friend, a wholesome counselor, a cheerful companion, an effectual comforter. By study, by reading, by thinking, one may innocently divert and pleasantly entertain himself, as in all weathers, as in all fortunes.

Every ear is tickled with the sweet music of applause.

We should allow others' excellences, to preserve a modest opinion of our own.

No adversity is in kind or degree peculiar to us; but if we survey the conditions of other men (of our brethren everywhere, of our neighbours all about us), and compare our case with theirs, we shall find that we have many consorts and associates in adversity, most as ill, many far worse bestead than ourselves; whence it must be a great fondness and perverseness to be displeased that we are not exempted from, but exposed to bear a share in the common troubles and burdens of mankind.

Shall we keep our hands in our bosom, or stretch ourselves on our beds of laziness, while all the world about us is hard at work, in pursuing the designs of its creation?

Nothing hath wrought more prejudice to religion, or brought more disparagement upon truth, than boisterous and unseasonable zeal.

We may be as good as we please, if we please to be good.

In defiance of all the tortue, of all the might, of all the malice of the world, the liberal man will ever be rich; for God's providence is his estate, God's wisdom and power are his defence, God's love and favor are his reward, and God's word is his security.

Sin is never at a stay; if we do not retreat from it, we shall advance in it; and the farther on we go, the more we have to come back.

Slander is a complication, a comprisal and sum of all wickedness.

Nature has concatenated our fortunes and affections together with indissoluble bands of mutual sympathy.

Generosity is nothing more seen than in a candid estimation of other men's virtues and good qualities.

As a stick, when once it is dry and stiff you may break it, but you can never bend it into a straighter posture; so doth the man become incorrigible who is settled and stiffened into vice.

It consisteth in one knows not what, and springeth up one can hardly tell how. Its ways are unaccountable and inexplicable, being answerable to the numberless rovings of fancy and windings of language.

Because Mathematicians frequently make use of Time, they ought to have a distinct idea of the meaning of that Word, otherwise they are Quacks.

It is commonly said that revenge is sweet, but to a calm and considerate mind, patience and forgiveness are sweeter.

Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young, being but the second year master of arts; but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency.

Chance never writ a legible book; chance never built a fair house; chance never drew a neat picture; it never did any of these things, nor ever will; nor can it be without absurdity supposed able to do them; which yet are works very gross and rude, very easy and feasible, as it were, in comparison to the production of a flower or a tree.

There do remain dispersed in the soil of human nature divers seeds of goodness, of benignity, of ingenuity, which, being cherished, excited, and quickened by good culture, do, by common experience, thrust out flowers very lovely, and yield fruits very pleasant of virtue and goodness.

Incredulity is not wisdom, but the worst kind of folly. It is folly, because it causes ignorance and mistake, with all the consequents of these; and it is very bad, as being accompanied with disingenuity, obstinacy, rudeness, uncharitableness, and the like bad dispositions; from which credulity itself, the other extreme sort of folly, is exempt.

Industry has annexed thereto the fairest fruits and the richest rewards.

Virtue is not a mushroom, that springeth up of itself in one night when we are asleep, or regard it not; but a delicate plant, that groweth slowly and tenderly, needing much pains to cultivate it, much care to guard it, much time to mature it, in our untoward soil, in this world's unkindly weather.

None are too wise to be mistaken, but few are so wisely just as to acknowledge and correct their mistakes, and especially the mistakes of prejudice.

The proper work of man, the grand drift of human life, is to follow reason, that noble spark kindled in us from heaven.

Mathematics - the unshaken Foundation of Sciences, and the plentiful Fountain of Advantage to human affairs.

The fruits of the earth do not more obviously require labor and cultivation to prepare them for our use and subsistence, than our faculties demand instruction and regulation in order to qualify us to become upright and valuable members of society, useful to others, or happy ourselves.

It is a fair adornment of a man and a great convenience both to himself and to all those with whom he converses and deals, to act uprightly, uniformly, and consistently. The practice of piety frees a man from interior distraction and from irresolution in his mind, from duplicity or inconstancy in his character, and from confusion in his proceedings, and consequently securing for others freedom from deception and disappointment in their transactions with him.

The reading of books, what is it but conversing with the wisest men of all ages and all countries.

Nothing of worth or weight can be achieved with half a mind, with a faint heart, and with a lame endeavor.