Robert Burton Quotes

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

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

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

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

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.

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

They [i.e. 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.

Be not solitary, be not idle

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

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

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

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

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

Melancholy can be overcome only by melancholy.

What a glut of books! Who can read them?