Robert South Quotes

Defeat should never be a source of discouragement but rather a fresh stimulus.

The seven wise men of Greece, so famous for their wisdom all the world over, acquired all that fame, each of them, by a single sentence consisting of two or three words.

Similes prove nothing, but yet greatly lighten and relieve the tedium of argument.

That in all these worldly Things, that a Man pursues with the greatest Eagerness and Intention of Mind imaginable, he finds not half the Pleasure in the actual Possession of them, that he proposed to himself in the Expectation.

An Aristotle was but the rubbish of an Adam, and Athens but the rudiments of Paradise.

Guilt upon the conscience, like rust upon iron, both defiles and consumes it, gnawing and creeping into it, as that does which at last eats out the very heart and substance of the metal.

Innocence is like polished armor; it adorns and defends.

Much reading is like much eating -wholly useless without digestion.

The covetous person lives as if the world were made altogether for him, and not he for the world.

Abstinence is the great strengthener and clearer of reason.

Most of the appearance of mirth in the world is not mirth, it is art. The wounded spirit is not seen, but walks under a disguise.

The grateful person fears no court or judge, no sentence or executioner, but what he carries about him in his own breast: and being still the most severe exactor of himself, not only confesses but proclaims his debts.

An obstacle is often an unrecognized opportunity

Passion is the drunkenness of the mind.

God expects from men something more than at such times, and that it were much to be wished for the credit of their religion as well as the satisfaction of their conscience that their Easter devotions would in some measure come up to their Easter dress.

So he that despairs, limits an Infinite Power to a Finite Apprehension, and measures Providence by his own little, contracted Model.

A man's life is an appendix to his heart.

He who has no mind to trade with the Devil should be so wise as to keep from his shop.

Action is the highest perfection and drawing forth of the utmost power, vigor, and activity of man's nature.

Society is built upon trust.

Let a man be but in earnest in praying against a temptation as the tempter is in pressing it, and he needs not proceed by a surer measure.

Folly enlarges men's desires while it lessens their capacities.

Anger is a transient hatred; or at least very like it.

The mind begins to boggle at unnatural substances as things paradoxical and incomprehensible.

Speech was given to the ordinary sort of men, whereby to communicate their mind; but to wise men, whereby to conceal it.

It is the work of fancy to enlarge, but of judgment to shorten and contract; and therefore this must be as far above the other as judgment is a greater and nobler faculty than fancy or imagination.

No man's religion ever survives his morals.

Aristotle was but a wreck of an Adam, and Athens but the rubbish of an Eden. How completely sin has defaced the divine image in man! That man has lost his righteousness and happiness is clearly evident as we look at the state of the world today!

Pain is an outcry of sin.

A true friend is the gift of God, and He only who made hearts can unite them.

Flints may be melted - we see it daily - but an ungrateful heart cannot be; not by the strongest and noblest flame.

He who does a kindness to an ungrateful person, sets his seal to a flint and sows his seed upon the sand; on the former he makes no impression, and from the latter finds no product.

For he that is a good man, is three quarters of his way towards the being a good Christian, wheresoever he lives, or whatsoever he is called.

There is not the least flower but seems to hold up its head, and to look pleasantly, in the secret sense of the goodness of its Heavenly Maker.

It is a noble and great thing to cover the blemishes and excuse the failings of a friend; to draw a curtain before his weaknesses and to display his perfections; to bury his shortcomings in silence but to proclaim his virtues on the housetop.

He that tears away a man's good name tears his flesh from his bones, and, by letting him live, gives him only a cruel opportunity of feeling his misery, of burying his better part, and surviving himself.

God afflicts with the mind of a father, and kills for no other purpose but that he may raise again.