Robert Burton Quotes

To The Reader Who Employs His Leisure Ill
Whoever you may be, I caution you against rashly defaming the author of this work, or cavilling in jest against him. Nay, do not silently reproach him in consequence of others' censure, nor employ your wit in foolish disapproval or false accusation. For, should Democritus Junior prove to be what he professes, even a kinsman of his elder namesake, or be ever so little of the same kidney, it is all up with you: he will become both accuser and judge of you in his petulant spleen, will dissipate you in jest, pulverize you with witticisms, and sacrifice you, I can promise you, to the God of Mirth.
Again I warn you against cavilling, lest, while you culumniate or disgracefully disparage Decmocritus Junior, who has no animosity against you, you should hear from some judicious friend the very words the people of Abdera heard of old from Hippocrates, when they held their well-deserving and popular fellow-citizen to be a madman: "Truly, it is you, Democritus, that are wise, while the people of Abdera are fools and madmen." You have no more sense than the people of Abdera. Having given you this warning in a few words, O reader who employ your liesure ill, farewell.

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

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

Those impious epicures, libertines, atheists, hypocrites, infidels, worldly, secure, impenitent, unthankful, and carnal-minded men, that attribute all to natural causes, that will acknowledge no supreme power; that have cauterized consciences, or live in a reprobate sense; or such desperate persons as are too distrustful of his mercies.

As a fat body is more subject to diseases, so are rich men to absurdities and fooleries, to many casualties and cross inconveniences.

Wine is strong, the king is strong, women are strong, but truth overcometh all things.

No Centaurs here, or Gorgons look to find,
My subject is of man, and human kind.

Melancholy can be overcome only by melancholy.

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

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

He that increaseth wisdom, increaseth sorrow.

When I lie waking all alone,
Recounting what I have ill done,
My thoughts on me then tyrannize,
Fear and sorrow me surprise,
Whether I tarry still or go,
Methinks the time moves very slow,
All my griefs to this are jolly,
Naught so sad as melancholy.
'Tis my sole plague to be alone,
I am a beast, a monster grown,
I will no light nor company,
I find it now my misery.
The scene is turn'd, my joys are gone,
Fear, discontent, and sorrows come.
All my griefs to this are folly,
Naught so fierce as melancholy.

It is an old saying, "A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword"; and many men are as much galled with a calumny, a scurrile and bitter jest, a libel, a pasquil, satire, apologue, epigram, stage-plays, or the like, as with any misfortune whatsoever.

If you have no dreams, you shall live within them

A good conscience is a continual feast, but a galled conscience is as great a torment as can possibly happen, a still baking oven (so Pierius in his Hieroglyph compares it), another hell.

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

What cannot be cured must be endured.

The eyes are the harbingers of love, and the first step of love is sight.

One religion is as true as another.

I would advise him that is actually melancholy not to read this tract of Symptoms, lest he disquiet or make himself for a time worse, and more melancholy than he was before.

I light my candle from their torches.

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.

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

[E]very man hath liberty to write, but few ability. Heretofore learning was graced by judicious scholars, but now noble sciences are vilified by base and illiterate scribblers, that either write for vain-glory, need, to get money, or as Parasites to flatter and collogue with some great men, they put out trifles, rubbish and trash. Among so many thousand Authors you shall scarce find one by reading of whom you shall be any whit better, but rather much worse; by which he is rather infected than any way perfected…

What a catalogue of new books this year, all his age (I say) have our Frankfurt Marts, our domestic Marts, brought out. Twice a year we stretch out wits out and set them to sale; after great toil we attain nothing…What a glut of books! Who can read them? As already, we shall have a vast Chaos and confusion of Books, we are oppressed with them, our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with turning. For my part I am one of the number - one of the many - I do not deny it...

Every man for himself, the devil for all.

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

Idleness is an appendix to nobility.

We love neither God nor our neighbor as we should. Our love in spiritual things is "too defective, in worldly things too excessive, there is a jar in both." We love the world too much; God too little; our neighbor not at all, or for our own ends.

I would desire to have no other prison than a library, and to be chained together with as many good authors.

That which others hear or read of, I felt and practised myself; they get their knowledge by books, I mine by melancholizing.