Robert Southey Quotations

No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other's worth.

A kitten is in the animal world what a rosebud is in the garden.

All deception in the course of life is indeed nothing else but a lie reduced to practice, and falsehood passing from words into things.

Live as long as you may, the first twenty years are the longest half of your life.

The loss of a friend is like that of a limb; time may heal the anguish of the wound, but the loss cannot be repaired.

What will not woman, gentle woman dare; when strong affection stirs her spirit up?

How little do they see what is, who frame their hasty judgments upon that which seems.

To a resolute mind, wishing to do is the first step toward doing. But if we do not wish to do a thing it becomes impossible.

It is with words as with sunbeams - the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn

Order is the sanity of the mind, the health of the body, the peace of the city, the security of the state. Like beams in a house or bones to a body, so is order to all things.

They sin who tell us love can die; With life all other passions fly, All others are but vanity. . . . . . Love is indestructible, Its holy flame forever burneth; From heaven it came, to heaven returneth. . . . . . It soweth here with toil and care, But the harvest-time of love is there.

It has been more wittily than charitably said that hell is paved with good intentions; they have their place in heaven also.

Not where I breathe, but where I love, I live; Not where I love, but where I am, I die.

Never let a man imagine that he can pursue a good end by evil means, without sinning against his own soul. The evil effect on himself is certain.

Affliction is not sent in vain, young man, from that good God, who chastens whom he loves.

If you would be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams - the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.

Love is indestructible. It's holy flame forever burneth; from Heaven it came, to Heaven returneth.

Thou hast been called, O Sleep! The friend of woe; But 'tis the happy that have called thee so

There are three things that ought to be considered before some things are spoken: the manner, the place, and the time

What blockheads are those wise persons, who think it necessary that a child should comprehend everything it reads.

If you would be pungent, be brief.

Curses are like young chickens, they always come home to roost

If you would be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams. The more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.

How little do they see what really is, who frame their judgments upon that which seems

As sure as God is good, so surely there is no such thing as necessary evil.

Thou hast been called, O sleep! the friend of woe; But 't is the happy that have called thee so.

The disappointed man turns his thoughts toward a state of existence where his wiser desires may be fixed with the certainty of faith; the successful man feels that the objects which he has ardently pursued fail to satisfy the cravings of an immortal spirit; the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness, that he may save his soul alive.

Faith in the hereafter is as necessary for the intellectual as the moral character; and to the man of letters, as well as to the Christian, the present forms but the slightest portion of his existence.

Beasts, birds, and insects, even to the minutest and meanest of their kind, act with the unerring providence of instinct; man, the while, who possesses a higher faculty, abuses it, and therefore goes blundering on.

Ye who dwell at home, Ye do not know the terrors of the main.

Few people give themselves time to be friends.

There was a time when I believed in the persuadability of man, and had the mania of man-mending. Experience has taught me better. The ablest physician can do little in the great lazar-house of society. He acts the wisest part who retires from the contagion.

Ay! idleness! the rich folks never fail To find some reason why the poor deserve Their miseries.

The pulpit is a clergyman's parade; the parish is his field of active service.

A house is never perfectly furnished for enjoyment unless there is a child in it rising three years old, and a kitten rising three weeks.

Mild arch of promise! on the evening sky Thou shinest fair with many a lovely ray, Each in the other melting.

She comes majestic with her swelling sails, The gallant Ship: along her watery way, Homeward she drives before the favouring gales; Now flirting at their length the streamers play, And now they ripple with the ruffling breeze.

The laws are with us, and God on our side.

In fall-orbed glory, yonder moon Divine Rolls through the dark-blue depths.

Earth could not hold us both, nor can one heaven Contain my deadliest enemy and me.

From his brimstone bed, at break of day, A-walking the Devil is gone, To look at his little snug farm of the World, And see how his stock went on.

My days among the dead are passed; Around me I behold, Where'er these casual eyes are cast, The mighty minds of old; My never-failing friends are they, With whom I converse day by day.

Whatever strengthens our local attachments is favorable both to individual and national character, our home, our birthplace, our native land. Think for a while what the virtues are which arise out of the feelings connected with these words, and if you have any intellectual eyes, you will then perceive the connection between topography and patriotism.

Happy it were for us all if we bore prosperity as well and as wisely as we endure adverse fortune.

My notions of life are much the same as they are about traveling; there is a good deal of amusement on the road; but, after all, one wants to be at rest.

Without religion the highest endowments of intellect can only render the possessor more dangerous if he be ill disposed; if well disposed, only more unhappy.

Be thankful that your lot has fallen on times when, though there may be many evil tongues and exasperated spirits, there are none who have fire and fagot at command.

Beware of those who are homeless by choice! You have no hold on human being whose affections are without a top-root!

Cupid "the little greatest god."

The march of intellect is proceeding at quick time; and if its progress be not accompanied by a corresponding improvement in morals and religion, the faster it proceeds, with the more violence will you be hurried down the road to ruin.

Give me a room whose every nook is dedicated to a book.

Little, indeed, does it concern us in this our mortal stage, to inquire whence the spirit hath come; but of what infinite concern is the consideration whither it is going. Surely such consideration demands the study of a life.

There are some readers who have never read an essay on taste; and if they take my advice they never will, for they can no more improve their taste by so doing than they could improve their appetite or digestion by studying a cookery-book.

I have told you of the Spaniard who always put on his spectacles when about to eat cherries, that they might look bigger and more attempting. In like manner I made the most of my enjoyment s: and through I do not cast my cares away, I pack them in as little compass as I can, and carry them as conveniently as I can for myself, and never let them annoy others.

It is not for man to rest in absolute contentment. He is born to hopes and aspirations as the sparks fly upward, unless he has brutalized his nature and quenched the spirit of immortality which is his portion.

Would you who judge of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of pleasure, take this rule; whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the relish of spiritual things; in short; whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that is sin to you; however innocent it may be in itself.

Our restlessness in this world seems to indicate that we are intended for a better. We have all of us a longing after happiness; and surely the Creator will gratify all the natural desires he has implanted in us.

Three things a wise man will not trust, The wind, the sunshine of an April day, And woman's plighted faith.

My name is Death: the last best friend am I.

I cannot believe in an eternity of hell. I hope God will forgive me if I err; but in this matter I cannot say, "Lord help my unbelief."

Oh, when a mother meets on high The babe she lost in infancy, Hath she not then for pains and fears, The day of woe, the watchful night, For all her sorrow, all her tears, An over-payment of delight?

Some voluntary castaways there will always be, whom no fostering kindness and no parental care can preserve from self-destruction; but if any are lost for want of care and culture, there is a sin of omission in the society to which they belong.

In the days of my youth I remembered my God! And He hath not forgotten my age.

"You are old, Father William," the young man cried, "The few locks which are left you are gray; You are hale, Father William, a hearty old man,- Now tell me the reason I pray."

There is another world for all that live and move-a better one!

From its fountains In the mountains, Its rills and its gills; Through moss and through brake, It runs and it creeps For awhile till it sleeps In its own little Lake. And thence at departing, Awakening and starting, It runs through the reeds And away it proceeds, Through meadow and glade, In sun and in shade, And through the wood-shelter, Among crags in its flurry, Helter-skelter, Hurry-scurry.

The grave is but the threshold of eternity. What a world were this, how unendurable its weight, If they whom death hath sundered, did not meet again!

It behooves us always to bear in mind, that while actions are always to be judged by the immutable standard of right and wrong, the judgments which we pass upon men must be qualified by considerations of age, country, station, and other accidental circumstances; and it will then be found that he who is most charitable in his judgment is generally the least unjust.

Whoever has tasted the breath of morning knows that the most invigorating and most delightful hours of then day are commonly spent in bed; though it is the evident intention of nature that we should enjoy and profit by them.

Let us depart! the universal sun Confines not to one land his blessed beams; Nor is man rooted, like a tree, whose seed, the winds on some ungenial soil have cast there, where it cannot prosper.

For society, of all places I have ever been, Norwich is the best.

The grave Is but the threshold of eternity.

There is no security in a good disposition if the support of good principles--that is to say, of religion, of Christian faith--be wanting. It may be soured by misfortune, it may be corrupted by wealth, it may be blighted by neediness, it may lose all its original brightness, if destitute of that support.

Man hath a weary pilgrimage, As through the word he wends; On every stage, from youth to age, Still discontent attends.

A wise judge, by the craft of the law, was never seduced from its purpose.

A man may be cheerful and contented in celibacy, but I do not think he can ever be happy; it is an unnatural state, and the best feelings of his nature are never called into action.

Go, little Book! From this my solitude I cast thee on the Waters,--go thy ways: And if, as I believe, thy vein be good, The World will find thee after many days. Be it with thee according to thy worth: Go, little Book; in faith I send thee forth.

That charity is bad which takes from independence its proper pride, from mendicity its salutary shame.

Among the poor, the approach of dissolution is usually regarded with a quiet and natural composure, which it is consolatory to contemplate, and which is as far removed from the dead palsy of unbelief as it is from the delirious raptures of fanaticism. Theirs is a true, unhesitating faith, and they are willing to lay down the burden of e weary life, in the sure and certain hope of a blessed immortality.

Our knowledge, is our power, and God our strength.

The true one of youth's love, proving a faithful helpmate in those years when the dream of life is over, and we live in its realities.

And when my own Mark Antony Against young Caesar strove, And Rome's whole world was set in arms, The cause was,--all for love.

I have heard a good story of Charles Fox. When his house was on fire, he found all efforts to save it useless, and, being a good draughtsman, he went up to the next hill to make a drawing of the fire,--the best instance of philosophy I ever heard of.

A fastidious taste is like a squeamish appetite; the one has its origin in some disease of the mind, as the other has in some ailment of the stomach.

War, even in the best state of an army, with all the alleviations of courtesy and honor, with all the correctives of morality and religion, is nevertheless so great an evil, that to engage in it without a clear necessity is a crime of the blackest dye. When the necessity is clear, it then becomes a crime to shrink from it.

I can remember, with unsteady feet, Tottering from room to room, and finding pleasure In flowers, and toys, and sweetmeats, things which long Have lost their power to please; which when I see them, Raise only now a melancholy wish I were the little trifler once again, Who could be pleas'd so lightly.

I do not cast my eyes away from my troubles. I pack them in as little compass as I can for myself, and never let them annoy others.

Curses are like young chickens, theyalways come home to roost.

The solitary Bee Whose buzzing was the only sound of life, Flew there on restless wing, Seeking in vain one blossom where to fix.

One fault begets another; one crime renders another necessary.

They who once engage in iniquitous designs miserably deceive themselves when they think that they will go so far and no farther; one fault begets another, one crime renders another necessary; and thus they are impelled continually downward into a depth of guilt, which at the commencement of their career they would have died rather than have incurred.

Whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that is sin to you, however, innocent it may be in itself.

O Reader! hast thou eer stood to see The Holly-tree? The eye that contemplates it well perceies Its glossy leaes Ordered by an Intelligence so wise As might confound the Atheist's sophistries.

And as, when all the summer trees are seen So bright and green, The Holly leaes a sober hue display Less bright than they, But when the bare and wintry woods we see, What then so cheerful as the Holly-tree?

It is not for man to rest in absolute contentment.

For a young and presumptuous poet a disposition to write satires is one of the most dangerous he can encourage. It tempts him to personalities, which are not always forgiven after he has repented and become ashamed of them.

A stubborn mind conduces as little to wisdom or even to knowledge, as a stubborn temper to happiness

Some people seem born with a head in which the thin partition that divides great wit from folly is wanting.

Easier were it To hurl the rooted mountain from its base, Than force the yoke of slavery upon men Determin'd to be free.

Where Washington hath left His awful memory A light for after times!