Quotes from Isaac Barrow

I pass by that it is very culpable to be facetious in obscene and smutty matters.

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.

If men are wont to play with swearing anywhere, can we expect they should be serious and strict therein at the bar or in the church.

Wherefore for the public interest and benefit of human society it is requisite that the highest obligations possible should be laid upon the consciences of men.

It is commonly said that revenge is sweet, but to a calm and considerate mind, patience and forgiveness are sweeter.

Let us consider that swearing is a sin of all others peculiarly clamorous, and provocative of Divine judgment.

An accomplished mathematician, i.e. a most wretched orator.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Because Mathematicians frequently make use of Time, they ought to have a distinct idea of the meaning of that Word, otherwise they are Quacks.

He who loveth a book will never want a faithful friend, a wholesome counsellor, a cheerful companion, or an effectual comforter.

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

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

As a stick, when once it is dry and stiff you may break it, but you can never bend it into a straighter posture; so doth the man become incorrigible who is settled and stiffened into vice.

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.

The proper work of man, the grand drift of human life, is to follow reason, that noble spark kindled in us from heaven.

Shall we keep our hands in our bosom, or stretch ourselves on our beds of laziness, while all the world about us is hard at work, in pursuing the designs of its creation?

Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young, being but the second year master of arts; but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency.

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

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.