Robert Burton Quotes

101 Sourced Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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
To these crocodile's tears they will add sobs, fiery sighs, and sorrowful countenance, pale colour, leanness.

Robert Burton
Many things happen between the cup and the lip.

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

Robert Burton
Columbus did not find out America by chance, but God directed him at that time to discover it; it was contingent to him, but necessary to God.

Robert Burton
Like dogs in a wheel, birds in a cage, or squirrels in a chain, they still climb and climb, with great labor, and incessant anxiety, but never reach the top.

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

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

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

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

Robert Burton