Inspirational Quotes by Isaac Watts

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

“If a book has no index or good table of contents, it is very useful to make one as you are reading it.”

“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.”

“Some persons believe everything that their kindred, their parents, and their tutors believe. The veneration and the love which they have for their ancestors incline them to swallow down all their opinions at once, without examining what truth or falsehood there is in them. Men take their principles by inheritance, and defend them as they would their estates, because they are born heirs to them.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“Yet, gracious God amidst these storms of nature, Thine eyes behold a sweet and sacred calm Reign through the realms of conscience: all within Lies peaceful and composed. ‘Tis wondrous grace Keeps off thy terrors from this humble bosom, Though stained with sins and follies, yet serene In penitential peace and cheerful hope; Sprinkled and guarded with atoning blood. Thy vital smiles amidst this devastation, Like heavenly sunbeams hid behind the clouds, Break out in happy moments with bright radiance, Cleaving the gloom; the fair celestial light Softens and gilds the horrors of the storm, And richest cordials to the heart conveys. O glorious solace of immense distress, A conscience and a God! A friend at home And a better Friend on high! This is my Rock Of firm support, my Shield of sure defence Against infernal arrows. Rise, my soul, Put on thy courage: Here’s the living spring Of joys divinely sweet and ever new, ‘A peaceful conscience and a smiling heaven.’ Weak as my zeal is, yet my zeal is true; It bears the trying furnace. Love divine Constrains me; I am thine. Incarnate love Has seized and holds me in almighty arms: Here’s my salvation, my eternal hope. Amidst the wreck of worlds and dying nature, ‘I am the Lord’s, and he forever mine.”

“See from His head, His hands, His feet, Sorrow and love flow mingled down! Did e’er such love and sorrow meet, Or thorns compose so rich a crown?”

“Let dogs delight to bark and bite, ⁠For God hath made them so; Let bears and lions growl and fight, ⁠For 'tis their nature too. But, children, you should never let ⁠Such angry passions rise; Your little hands were never made ⁠To tear each other's eyes.”