Isaac Barrow Men Quotations

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Men do truly more render themselves despicable than others when, without just ground, or reasonable occasion, they do attack others in this way.

If we desire to live securely, comfortably, and quietly, that by all honest means we should endeavor to purchase the good will of all men, and provoke no man's enmity needlessly; since any man's love may be useful, and every man's hatred is dangerous.

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.

In defiance of all the tortue, of all the might, of all the malice of the world, the liberal man will ever be rich; for God's providence is his estate, God's wisdom and power are his defence, God's love and favor are his reward, and God's word is his security.

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.

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