Robert Burton

All my joys to this are follyNaught so sweet as melancholy.

— Robert Burton

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

— Robert Burton

The Chinese say that we Europeans have one eye, they themselves two, all the world else is blinde.

— Robert Burton

I had a heavy heart and an ugly head, a kind of impostume in my head, which I was very desirous to be unladen of.

— Robert Burton

I would help others, out of a fellow-feeling.

— Robert Burton

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

— Robert Burton

We can say nothing but what hath been said. Our poets steal from Homer... Our story-dressers do as much; he that comes last is commonly best.

— Robert Burton

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

— Robert Burton

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

— Robert Burton

It is most true, stylus virum arguit,—our style bewrays us.

— Robert Burton

I had not time to lick it into form, as a bear doth her young ones.

— Robert Burton

As that great captain, Ziska, would have a drum made of his skin when he was dead, because he thought the very noise of it would put his enemies to flight.

— Robert Burton

Like the watermen that row one way and look another.

— Robert Burton

Smile with an intent to do mischief, or cozen him whom he salutes.

— Robert Burton

Him that makes shoes go barefoot himself.

— Robert Burton

Rob Peter, and pay Paul.

— Robert Burton

Penny wise, pound foolish.

— Robert Burton

Women wear the breeches.

— Robert Burton

Like Aesop's fox, when he had lost his tail, would have all his fellow foxes cut off theirs.

— Robert Burton

Our wrangling lawyers... are so litigious and busy here on earth, that I think they will plead their clients' causes hereafter,—some of them in hell.

— Robert Burton

Hannibal, as he had mighty virtues, so had he many vices; he had two distinct persons in him.

— Robert Burton

Carcasses bleed at the sight of the murderer.

— Robert Burton

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

— Robert Burton

[Witches] steal young children out of their cradles, ministerio dæmonum, and put deformed in their rooms, which we call changelings.

— Robert Burton

Can build castles in the air.

— Robert Burton

Joh. Mayor, in the first book of his "History of Scotland," contends much for the wholesomeness of oaten bread; it was objected to him, then living at Paris, that his countrymen fed on oats and base grain…. And yet Wecker out of Galen calls it horse-meat, and fitter juments than men to feed on.

— Robert Burton

Cookery is become an art, a noble science; cooks are gentlemen.

— Robert Burton

As much valour is to be found in feasting as in fighting, and some of our city captains and carpet knights will make this good, and prove it.

— Robert Burton

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

— Robert Burton

Idleness is an appendix to nobility.

— Robert Burton

Why doth one man's yawning make another yawn?

— Robert Burton

A nightingale dies for shame if another bird sings better.

— Robert Burton

Every other sin hath some pleasure annexed to it, or will admit of an excuse; envy alone wants both. Other sins last but for awhile; the gut may be satisfied, anger remits, hatred hath an end, envy never ceaseth.

— Robert Burton

They do not live but linger.

— Robert Burton

[Diseases] crucify the soul of man, attenuate our bodies, dry them, wither them, shrivel them up like old apples, make them so many anatomies.

— Robert Burton

[Desire] is a perpetual rack, or horsemill, according to Austin, still going round as in a ring.

— Robert Burton

[Ambitious men] may not cease, but as a dog in a wheel, a bird in a cage, or a squirrel in a chain, so Budaeus compares them; they climb and climb still, with much labour, but never make an end, never at the top.

— Robert Burton

[The rich] are indeed rather possessed by their money than possessors.

— Robert Burton

Like a hog, or dog in the manger, he doth only keep it because it shall do nobody else good, hurting himself and others.

— Robert Burton

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.

— Robert Burton

A mere madness, to live like a wretch and die rich.

— Robert Burton

I may not here omit those two main plagues and common dotages of human kind, wine and women, which have infatuated and besotted myriads of people; they go commonly together.

— Robert Burton

Though they [philosophers] write contemptu gloriæ, yet as Hieron observes, they will put their names to their books.

— Robert Burton

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

— Robert Burton

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

— Robert Burton

Hinc quam sic calamus sævior ense, patet. The pen worse than the sword.

— Robert Burton

Homer himself must beg if he want means, and as by report sometimes he did "go from door to door and sing ballads, with a company of boys about him."

— Robert Burton

See one promontory (said Socrates of old), one mountain, one sea, one river, and see all.

— Robert Burton

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

— Robert Burton

Felix Plater notes of some young physicians, that study to cure diseases, catch them themselves, will be sick, and appropriate all symptoms they find related of others to their own persons.

— Robert Burton

Aristotle said melancholy men of all others are most witty.

— Robert Burton

Seneca thinks the gods are well pleased when they see great men contending with adversity.

— Robert Burton

Like him in Æsop, he whipped his horses withal, and put his shoulder to the wheel.

— Robert Burton

Machiavel says virtue and riches seldom settle on one man.

— Robert Burton

Almost in every kingdom the most ancient families have been at first princes' bastards; their worthiest captains, best wits, greatest scholars, bravest spirits in all our annals, have been base [born].

— Robert Burton

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.

— Robert Burton

As he said in Machiavel, omnes eodem patre nati, Adam's sons, conceived all and born in sin, etc. "We are by nature all as one, all alike, if you see us naked; let us wear theirs and they our clothes, and what is the difference?"

— Robert Burton

Set a beggar on horseback and he will ride a gallop.

— Robert Burton

Fabricius finds certain spots and clouds in the sun.

— Robert Burton

Christ himself was poor... And as he was himself, so he informed his apostles and disciples, they were all poor, prophets poor, apostles poor.

— Robert Burton

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

— Robert Burton

Many things happen between the cup and the lip.

— Robert Burton

What can't be cured must be endured.

— Robert Burton

Everything, saith Epictetus, hath two handles,—the one to be held by, the other not.

— Robert Burton

All places are distant from heaven alike.

— Robert Burton

The commonwealth of Venice in their armory have this inscription: "Happy is that city which in time of peace thinks of war."

— Robert Burton

Every man, as the saying is, can tame a shrew but he that hath her.

— Robert Burton

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

— Robert Burton

Tobacco, divine, rare, superexcellent tobacco, which goes far beyond all the panaceas, potable gold, and philosopher's 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.

— Robert Burton

Let me not live," saith Aretine's Antonia, "if I had not rather hear thy discourse than see a play.

— Robert Burton

Every schoolboy hath that famous testament of Grunnius Corocotta Porcellus at his fingers' end.

— Robert Burton

Birds of a feather will gather together.

— Robert Burton

And this is that Homer's golden chain, which reacheth down from heaven to earth, by which every creature is annexed, and depends on his Creator.

— Robert Burton

And hold one another's noses to the grindstone hard.

— Robert Burton

Every man for himself, his own ends, the Devil for all.

— Robert Burton

No cord nor cable can so forcibly draw, or hold so fast, as love can do with a twined thread.

— Robert Burton

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

— Robert Burton

Diogenes struck the father when the son swore, because he taught him no better.

— Robert Burton

He is only fantastical that is not in fashion.

— Robert Burton

[Quoting Seneca] Cornelia kept her in talk till her children came from school, "and these," said she, "are my jewels."

— Robert Burton

To these crocodile tears they will add sobs, fiery sighs, and sorrowful countenance.

— Robert Burton

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

— Robert Burton

Diogenes struck the father when the son swore.

— Robert Burton

Though it rain daggers with their points downward.

— Robert Burton

Going as if he trod upon eggs.

— Robert Burton

I light my candle from their torches.

— Robert Burton

England is a paradise for women and hell for horses; Italy a paradise for horses, hell for women, as the diverb goes.

— Robert Burton

The miller sees not all the water that goes by his mill.

— Robert Burton

As clear and as manifest as the nose in a man's face.

— Robert Burton

Make a virtue of necessity.

— Robert Burton

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

— Robert Burton

If the world will be gulled, let it be gulled.

— Robert Burton

For ignorance is the mother of devotion, as all the world knows, and these times can amply witness.

— Robert Burton

The fear of some divine and supreme powers keeps men in obedience.

— Robert Burton

Out of too much learning become mad.

— Robert Burton

The Devil himself, which is the author of confusion and lies.

— Robert Burton

Isocrates adviseth Demonicus, when he came to a strange city, to worship by all means the gods of the place.

— Robert Burton

When they are at Rome, they do there as they see done.

— Robert Burton

One religion is as true as another.

— Robert Burton

Melancholy and despair, though often, do not always concur; there is much difference: melancholy fears without a cause, this upon great occasion; melancholy is caused by fear and grief, but this torment procures them and all extremity of bitterness.

— Robert Burton

A good conscience is a continual feast.

— Robert Burton

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

— Robert Burton

Our conscience, which is a great ledger book, wherein are written all our offenses...grinds our souls with the remembrance of some precedent sins, makes us reflect upon, accuse and condemn ourselves.

— Robert Burton

They have cheveril consciences that will stretch.

— Robert Burton

What physic, what chirurgery, what wealth, favor, authority can relieve, bear out, assuage, or expel a troubled conscience? A quiet mind cureth all them, but all they cannot comfort a distressed soul: who can put to silence the voice of desperation?

— Robert Burton

Be not solitary, be not idle.

— Robert Burton

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

— Robert Burton

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

— Robert Burton