In defiance of all the torture, the might, and the malice of the world, the liberal man will ever be rich; for God’s providence is his estate, God’s wisdom and power his defense, God’s love and favor his reward, and God’s word his security.
—Isaac Barrow
Industry hath annexed thereto the fairest fruits and the richest rewards.
—Isaac Barrow
Topics: Industry
An hour’s industry will do more to produce cheerfulness, suppress evil humors, and retrieve one’s affairs, than a month’s moaning.—It sweetens enjoyments, and seasons our attainments with a delightful relish.
—Isaac Barrow
Topics: Industry
Smiling always with a never fading serenity of countenance, and flourishing in an immortal youth.
—Isaac Barrow
Topics: Serenity
There is not in nature anything so remotely distant from God, or so extremely opposite to him, as a greedy and griping niggard.
—Isaac Barrow
We should allow others’ excellences, to preserve a modest opinion of our own.
—Isaac Barrow
Topics: Opinions, Appreciation
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.
—Isaac Barrow
Topics: Prejudice
They who depend on the merits of ancestors, search in the roots of the tree for the fruits which the branches ought to produce.
—Isaac Barrow
Topics: Ancestry
Jesting when not used upon improper matter, in an unfit manner, with excessive measure, at undue season, or to evil purpose, may be allowed.
—Isaac Barrow
A constant governance of our speech, according to duty and reason, is a high instance and a special argument of a thoroughly sincere and solid goodness.
—Isaac Barrow
Topics: Speech
Nothing hath wrought more prejudice to religion, or brought more disparagement upon truth, than boisterous and unseasonable zeal.
—Isaac Barrow
Topics: Zeal
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.
—Isaac Barrow
He that loves a book will never want a faithful 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.
—Isaac Barrow
Topics: Reading, Books
Infidelity, indeed, is the root of all sin; for did man heartily believe the promises to obedience, and the threats to disobedience, they could hardly be so unreasonable as to forfeit the one or incur the other.
—Isaac Barrow
Wit is proper and commendable when it enlightens the intellect by good sense, conveyed in jocular expression; when it infringes neither on religion, charity, and justice, nor on peace; when it maintains good humor, sweetens conversation, and makes the endearments of society more captivating; when it exposes what is vile and base to contempt; when it reclaims the vicious, and laughs them into virtue; when it answers what is below refutation; when it replies to obloquy; when it counterbalances the fashion of error and vice, playing off their own weapons of ridicule against them; when it adorns truth; when it follows great examples; when it is not used upon subjects, improper for it, or in a manner unbecoming, in measure intemperate, at an undue season or to a dangerous end.
—Isaac Barrow
Topics: Wit
Alexander the Great, reflecting on his friends degenerating into sloth and luxury, told them that it was a most slavish thing to luxuriate, and a most royal thing to labor.
—Isaac Barrow
Topics: Labor
Incredulity is not wisdom, but the worst kind of folly. It is folly, because it causes ignorance and mistake, with all the consequences 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.
—Isaac Barrow
We may be as good as we please, if we please to be good.
—Isaac Barrow
Topics: Goodness
Upright simplicity is the deepest wisdom, and perverse craft the merest shallowness.
—Isaac Barrow
Topics: Simplicity
Nothing of worthy or weight can be achieved with half a mind, with a faint heart, and with a lame endeavor.
—Isaac Barrow
Topics: Dedication, Commitment
Chance never write a legible book; never built a fair house; never drew a neat picture; never did any of these things, nor ever will; nor can it, without absurdity, be supposed to do them, which are yet works very gross and rude, and very easy and feasible, as it were, in comparison to the production of a flower or a tree.
—Isaac Barrow
Topics: Chance
Sin is never at a stay; if we do not retreat from it, we shall advance in it; and the further on we go, the more we have to come back.
—Isaac Barrow
Topics: Sin
Leave a Reply