Top 24 Quotes & Sayings by Robert Burton

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English writer Robert Burton.

Last updated on April 21, 2025.

Robert Burton was an English writer and fellow of Oxford University, best known for his encyclopedic book The Anatomy of Melancholy.

English - Writer | February 8, 1577 - January 25, 1640

Source: Wikipedia

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

Robert Burton

Idleness is an appendix to nobility.

Robert Burton

What is life, when wanting love? Night without a morning; love's the cloudless summer sun, nature gay adorning.

Robert Burton

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

Robert Burton

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.

Robert Burton

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

Robert Burton

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

Robert Burton

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

Robert Burton

Almost in every kingdom the most ancient families have been at first princes' bastards.

Robert Burton

A good conscience is a continual feast.

Robert Burton

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

Robert Burton

Great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion.

Robert Burton

A quiet mind cureth all.

Robert Burton

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

Robert Burton

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

Robert Burton

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

Robert Burton

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

Robert Burton

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.

Robert Burton

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

Robert Burton