Cotton Mather Quotes

#1. Ah, children, be afraid of going prayerless to bed, lest the Devil be your bedfellow.

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#2. Ah! destructive Ignorance, what shall be done to chase thee out of the World!

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#3. Ignorance is the Mother not of Devotion, but of Heresy.

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#4. You may ... make a little recreation of poetry, in the midst of your painful studies. Nevertheless, I cannot but advise you. Withhold thy throat from thirst. Be not so set upon poetry, as to be always poring on the passionate and measured pages ... let not the Circean cup intoxicate you.

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#5. Instead of exhorting you to augment your charity, I will rather utter an exhortation, or at least a supplication, that you may not abuse your charity by misapplying it.

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#6. Religion brought forth Prosperity, and the daughter destroyed the mother.

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#7. A Good School deserves to be call'd, the very Salt of the Town, that hath it.

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#8. Our opportunities to do good are our talents.

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#9. Wilderness is a temporary condition through which we are passing to the Promised Land.

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#10. There may be some so very Ignorant, that they know not how to Pray.

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#11. The Word of God must be Read and Heard with Diligence that so you may arrive to the Knowledge that is needful for you.

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#12. You are young and have the world before you; stoop as you go through it, and you will miss many hard bumps.

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#13. History is the story of events, with praise or blame.

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#14. That there is a Devil, is a thing doubted by none but such as are under the influences of the Devil.

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#15. What Must I Do to Be Saved? It is impossible to ask a more weighty Question! It is deplorable that we hear it asked with no more Frequency, with nor more Agony.

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#16. I will now teach my son Increase (and others of my children) the way of raising a lesson out of every verse in his reading of the Bible; and of turning it into a Prayer; and engage him (and them) unto a daily Course in reading the Bible in such a way

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#17. Charity ... is kind, it is not easily provok'd, it thinks no evil, it believes all things, hopes all things.

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#18. Families are the Nurseries of all Societies; and the First combinations of mankind.

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#19. Is this dying? Is this all? Is this what I feared when I prayed against a hard death? Oh, I can bear this! I can bear this!

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#20. Ye monsters of the bubbling deep,
Your Maker's praises spout;
Up from the sands ye codlings peep,
And wag your tails about

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