56 Quotes by Isaac Barrow

Poetry is a kind of ingenious nonsense (Spence, Anecdotes

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

Upright simplicity is the deepest wisdom, and perverse craft the merest shallowness.

He that loves a book will never want a [close] 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.

Every ear is tickled with the sweet music of applause.

We should allow others' excellences, to preserve a modest opinion of our own.

No adversity is in kind or degree peculiar to us; but if we survey the conditions of other men (of our brethren everywhere, of our neighbours all about us), and compare our case with theirs, we shall find that we have many consorts and associates in adversity, most as ill, many far worse bestead than ourselves; whence it must be a great fondness and perverseness to be displeased that we are not exempted from, but exposed to bear a share in the common troubles and burdens of mankind.

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?

Nothing hath wrought more prejudice to religion, or brought more disparagement upon truth, than boisterous and unseasonable zeal.