Robert Burton Quotations

A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself.

Almost in every kingdom the most ancient families have been at first princes' bastards.

To enlarge or illustrate this power and effect of love is to set a candle in the sun.

No rule is so general, which admits not some exception.

Old friends become bitter enemies on a sudden for toys and small offenses.

What is life, when wanting love? Night without a morning; love's the cloudless summer sun, nature gay adorning.

One was never married, and that's his hell; another is, and that's his plague.

We can make mayors and officers every year, but not scholars.

Worldly wealth is the Devil's bait; and those whose minds feed upon riches recede, in general, from real happiness, in proportion as their stores increase, as the moon, when she is fullest, is farthest from the sun.

A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword.

No cord or cable can draw so forcibly, or bind so fast, as love can do with a single thread.

The men who succeed are the efficient few. They are the few who have the ambition and will power to develop themselves.

Like dogs in a wheel, birds in a cage, or squirrels in a chain, ambitious men still climb and climb, with great labor, and incessant anxiety, but never reach the top.

Every man hath a good and a bad angel attending on him in particular all his life long.

Were it not that they are loath to lay out money on a rope, they would be hanged forthwith, and sometimes die to save charges.

Many men are melancholy by hearing music, but it is a pleasing melancholy that it causeth; and therefore to such as are discontent, in woe, fear, sorrow, or dejected, it is a most present remedy

Most part of a lover's life is full of agony, anxiety, fear and grief, complaints, sighs, suspicions, and cares (heigh-ho my heart is woe), full of silence and irksome solitariness

To enlarge and illustrate this - is to set a candle in the sun.

I say with Didacus Stella, a dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself

Marriage and hanging go by destiny; matches are made in heaven

I write of melancholy, by being busy to avoid melancholy.

That which is a law today is none tomorrow

Who cannot give good counsel? 'Tis cheap, it costs them nothing

We can say nothing but what hath been said

Where God hath a temple, the Devil will have a chapel

This spring has been great for Kmart and other retailers. Hopefully, the consumer will continue to come out, the weather will continue to remain warm and we will go right into summer without missing a step.

This spring has been great for Kmart and other retailers, ... Hopefully, the consumer will continue to come out, the weather will continue to remain warm and we will go right into summer without missing a step.

Why are Italians at this day generally so good poets and painters? Because every man of any fashion amongst them hath his mistress

Truth is the shattered mirror strewn in myriad bits; while each believes his little bit the whole to own

Tobacco, divine, rare, superexcellent tobacco, which goes far beyond all the panaceas, potable gold, and philosophers stones, a sovereign remedy to all diseases but as it is commonly abused by most men, which take it as tinkers do ale, 'Tis a plague, a mischief, a violent purger of goods, lands, health; hellish, devilish and damned tobacco, the ruin and overthrow of body and soul.

There is something in a woman beyond all human delight; a magnetic virtue, a charming quality, an occult and powerful motive

Every other sin hath some pleasure annexed to it, or will admit of an excuse: envy alone wants both

Diogenes struck the father when the son swore

They are proud in humility, proud that they are not proud.

They are proud in humility; proud in that they are not proud

All my joys to this are folly, / Naught so sweet as melancholy.

They lard their lean books with the fat of others' works

How much more cruel the pen may be than the sword

Health indeed is a precious thing, to recover and preserve which we undergo any misery, drink bitter potions, freely give our goods: restore a man to his health, his purse lies open to thee

[T]hou canst not think worse of me than I do of myself.

Be not solitary, be not idle

If you like not my writing, go read something else.

What a glut of books! Who can read them?

Melancholy can be overcome only by melancholy.

Let thy fortune be what it will, 'tis thy mind alone that makes thee poor or rich, miserable or happy.