Isaac Watts Quotes

#1. Roses grow on thorns and honey wears a sting.

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

#3. The tall, the wise, the reverend head Must lie as low as ours.

Isaac Watts

#4. Do not spend the day in gathering flowers by the way side, lest night come upon you before you arrive at your journey's end, and then you will not reach it.

Isaac Watts

#5. The fondness we have for self furnishes another long rank of prejudices.

Isaac Watts

#6. Acquaint yourself with your own ignorance.

Isaac Watts

#7. And he that does one fault at first And lies to hide it, makes it two.

Isaac Watts

#8. In books, or work, or healthful play.

Isaac Watts

#9. Tis true my form is something odd But blaming me is blaming God Could I create myself anew I would not fail in pleasing you. If I could reach from pole to pole Or grasp the ocean with a span I would be measured by the soul The mind's the standard of the man.

Isaac Watts

#10. Flies, worms, and flowers exceed me still.

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

#12. Thoughts, like old vultures, prey upon their heart-strings

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

#17. Thanks to my friends for their care in my breeding,
Who taught me betimes to love working and reading.

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

#19. Now shall my inward joys arise,
And burst into a song;
Almighty love inspires my heart,
And pleasure tunes my tongue.

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

#23. I would not change my native landFor rich Peru with all her gold

Isaac Watts

#24. To see the dull indifference, the negligent and thoughtless air that sits upon the faces of a whole assembly, while the psalm is upon their lips, might even tempt a charitable observer to suspect the fervency of their inward religion.

Isaac Watts

#25. It is not to be expected that we should love God supremely if we have not known him to be more desirable than all other things.

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

#28. Everyday is a birthday; every moment of it is new to us; we are born again, renewed for fresh work and endeavor.

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

#31. 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.

Isaac Watts

#32. 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.

Isaac Watts

#33. No science is speedily learned by the noblest genius without tuition.

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

#40. How glad the heathens would have been, That worship idols, wood and stone, If they the book God had seen.

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

#42. Satirists do expose their own ill nature.

Isaac Watts

#43. There is a land of pure delight, Where saints immortal reign; Infinite day excludes the night, And pleasures banish pain.

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

#45. Prayer is a sacred and appointed means to obtain all the blessings that we want, whether they relate to this life or the life to come.

Isaac Watts

#46. Disputation carries away the mind from that calm and sedate temper which is so necessary to contemplate truth.

Isaac Watts

#47. 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.

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

#49. Every one of his opinions appears to himself to be written with sunbeams.

Isaac Watts

#50. 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.

Isaac Watts

#51. 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.

Isaac Watts

#52. There's no repentance in the grave.

Isaac Watts

#53. 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.

Isaac Watts

#54. Abandon the secret chamber and the spiritual life will decay.

Isaac Watts

#55. 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.

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

#57. 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.

Isaac Watts

#58. 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.

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

#60. 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.

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

#62. Must I be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease, while others fought to win the prize and sailed through bloody seas?

Isaac Watts

#63. Nothing tends so much to enlarge the mind as traveling.

Isaac Watts

#64. No, I'll repine at death no more, But with a cheerful gasp resign To the cold dungeon of the ground These dying, withering limbs of mine. Let worms devour my wasting flesh, And crumble all my bones to dust:
My God shall raise my frame anew, At the revival of the just.

Isaac Watts

#65. When the Eternal bows the skies
To visit earthly things,
With scorn divine he turns his eyes
From towers of haughty kings.
He bids his awful chariot roll
Far downward from the skies,
To visit every humble soul,
With pleasure in his eyes.

Isaac Watts

#66. Love is amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

#68. 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.

Isaac Watts

#69. From all who dwell below the skiesLet the Creator's praise arise;Let the Redeemer's name be sungThrough every land, by every tongue.

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

#71. Once a day, especially in the early years of life and study, call yourselves to an account what new ideas, what new proposition or truth you have gained, what further confirmation of known truths, and what advances you have made in any part of knowledge.

Isaac Watts

#72. Our God, our help in ages past,Our hope for years to come,Our shelter from the stormy blast,And our eternal home.

Isaac Watts

#73. 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.

Isaac Watts

#74. Speak softly. It is far better to rule by love than fear.Speak softly. Let no harsh words mar the good we may do here.

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

#76. I write not for your farthing, but to try / How I your farthing writers, may outvie.

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

#78. Time, like an ever-rolling stream, Bears all it's sons away;They fly forgotten as a dream dies at the opening day.

Isaac Watts

#79. 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.

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

#81. 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.

Isaac Watts

#82. It would be of great use to us to form our deliberate judgments of persons and things in the calmest and serenest hours of life, when the passions of nature are all silent, and the mind enjoys its most perfect composure.

Isaac Watts

#83. 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.

Isaac Watts

#84. Study detains the mind by the perpetual occurrence of something new, which may gratefully strike the imagination.

Isaac Watts

#85. 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.

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

#87. 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.

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

#89. 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.

Isaac Watts

#90. 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.

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

#92. To God the Father, God the Son, And God the Spirit, Three in One, Be honour, praise, and glory given By all on earth, and all in heaven.

Isaac Watts

#93. 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.

Isaac Watts

#94. Sweet is the day of sacred rest;
No mortal cares shall seize my breast;
O may my heart in tune be found
Like David's harp of solemn sound.

Isaac Watts

#95. 'Tis the voice of the sluggard; I heard him complain, you have waked me too soon, I must slumber again.

Isaac Watts

#96. How shall polluted mortals dare
To sing Thy glory or Thy grace
Beneath Thy feet we lie afar
And see but shadows of Thy face.

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

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

Isaac Watts

#99. Lord, what a thoughtless wretch was I,
To mourn, and murmur and repine,
To see the wicked placed on high,
In pride and robes of honor shine.
But oh, their end, their dreadful end,
Thy sanctuary taught me so,
On slipp'ry rocks I see them stand,
And fiery billows roll below.

Isaac Watts

#100. In works of labour,
or of skill,
I would be busy, too;
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.

Isaac Watts