Isaac Barrow Quotes

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Every ear is tickled with the sweet music of applause.

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.

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.

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.

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

Poetry is a kind of ingenious nonsense (Spence, Anecdotes

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.