57 Isaac Watts Quotes

I believe the promises of God enough to venture an eternity on them.

How divinely full of glory and pleasure shall that hour be when all the millions of mankind that have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb of God shall meet together and stand around Him, with every tongue and every heart full of joy and praise! How astonishing will be the glory and the joy of that day when all the saints shall join together in one common song of gratitude and love, and of everlasting thankfulness to this Redeemer! With that unknown delight, and inexpressible satisfaction, shall all that are saved from the ruins of sin and hell address the Lamb that was slain, and rejoice in His presence!

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

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

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.

Roses grow on thorns and honey wears a sting.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Among all the accomplishments of youth there is none preferable to a decent and agreeable behavior among men, a modest freedom of speech, a soft and elegant manner of address, a graceful and lovely deportment, a cheerful gravity and good-humor, with a mind appearing ever serene under the ruffling accidents of human life.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Then let these useless streams be stayed; wear native courage in your face.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Were both the golden Indies mine, I'd give both Indies for a tear.

The calmest and serenest hours of life, when the passions of nature are all silent, and the mind enjoys its most perfect composure.

Learning to trust is one of life's most difficult tasks.

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.

Satirists do expose their own ill nature.

May I govern my passions with absolute sway, and grow wiser and better as life wears away.

Let me be dressed fine as I will, Flies, worms, and flowers, exceed me still.

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.

Acquaint yourself with your own ignorance.

Nothing tends so much to enlarge the mind as travelling, that is, making visits to other towns, cities, or countries beside those in which we were born and educated.

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.

Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.

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

Thou sun, whose beams adorn the spheres, and with unwearied swiftness move to form the circles of our years.

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.

Reason is the glory of human nature, and one of the chief eminences whereby we are raised above the beasts, in this lower world.

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.