Isaac Watts Quotes

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

The Fondness we have for Self, and the Relation which other Persons and Things have to ourselves, furnish us with another long Rank of Prejudices.

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.

Satirists do expose their own ill nature.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Nothing tends so much to enlarge the mind as traveling.

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

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.

Custom and authority are no sure evidence of truth.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

No more let sins and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow Far as the curse is found.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.