Date: 1734

"I'm in a raging storm, / Where seas and skies are blended, while my soul / Like some light worthless chip of floating cork / Is tost from wave to wave."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"Without Memory the Soul of Man would be but a poor destitute naked Being, with an everlasting Blank spread over it, except the fleeting ideas of the present Moment."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"The same Apology of the Length of Years in composing this Book may serve also to excuse a Repetition of the same Sentiments which may happen to be found in different Places without the Author's Design; but in other Pages it was intended, so that those Rules for the Conduct of the Understanding w...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"Yet all Persons are under some Obligation to improve their own Understanding, otherwise it will be a barren Desart, or a Forest overgrown grown with Weeds and Brambles."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"You should therefore contrive and practice some proper Methods to acquaint yourself with your own Ignorance, and to impress your Mind with a deep and painful sense of the low and imperfect Degrees of your present Knowledge, that you may be incited with Labour and Activity to pursue after greater...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"The very Greek Heathens by the Light of Reason were taught to say, [GREEK CHARACTERS], and the Latins, A Jove principium, Musae."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"But when Studentio had once persuaded his Mind to tie itself down to this Method which I have prescribed, he sensibly gain'd an admirable Facility to read, and judge of what he read, by his daily Practice of it, and the Man made large Advances in the Pursuit of Truth; while Plumbinus and Plumeo ...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"The Man of much Reading and a large retentive Memory, but without Meditation, may become in the Sense of the World a knowing Man; and if he converses much with the Ancients, he may attain the Fame of Learning too: but he spends his Days afar off from Wisdom an...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"Happy Souls, who keep such a sacred Dominion over their inferior and animal Powers, and all the Influences of Pride and secular interest, that the sensitive Tumults or these vicious Influences never rise to disturb the superior and better Operations of the reasoning Mind!"

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"Such practices may happen to discourage and jade the Mind by an Attempt above its Power, it may balk the Understanding, and create an Aversion to future Diligence, and perhaps by Despair may forbid the Pursuit of that subject for ever afterwards; as a Limb over-strained by lifting a Weight above...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)