Robert Burton - The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)

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

Robert Burton
That which Pythagoras said to his scholars of old, may be forever applied to melancholy men, A fabis abstinete, eat no beans.

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
What, if a dear year come or dearth, or some loss? And 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
The Devil himself, which is the author of confusion and lies.

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

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

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

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
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
From this it is clear how much the pen is worse than the sword.

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

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

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
The mind, in short, of an ambitious man is never satisfied; his soul is harassed with unceasing anxieties, and his heart harrowed up by increasing disquietude.

Robert Burton
Like the watermen that row one way and look another.

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

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

Robert Burton
Women wear the breeches... in a word, the world turned upside downward.

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

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

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

Robert Burton
It is most true, stilus virum arguit —our style betrays us.

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

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

Robert Burton