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Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing, though the overtaking and possessing of a wish discovers the folly of the chase. William Congreve		Wednesday Aug 26, 2026
		Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969

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Tobacco, divine, rare, super excellent tobacco, which goes beyond all their panaceas, potable gold, and philosopher's stones, a sovereign remedy to all diseases.... But, as it is commonly abused by most men, which take it as tinkers do ale, 'tis a plague, a mischief, a violent purger of goods, lands, health, hellish, devilish, and damned tobacco, the ruin and overthrow of body and soul.

Quote Author: Robert Burton

	Robert Burton
	(1577-1640) English Clergyman and Scholar

Other Robert Burton Quotes

They are proud in their humility, proud that they are not proud.

The fear of death is worse than death.

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

No happiness is like unto it, no love so great as that of man and wife, no such comfort as a sweet wife.

Hope and patience are two sovereign remedies for all, the surest reposals, the softest cushions to lean on in adversity.

Every other sin hath some pleasure annexed to it, or will Admit of an excuse: envy alone wants both.

Tobacco, divine, rare, superexcellent tobacco, which goes far beyond all their panaceas, potable gold, and philosopher's stones, a sovereign remedy to all diseases.

All poets are mad.

All my joys to this are folly, Naught so sweet as Melancholy.

Ambition, a proud covetousness, or a dry thirst of honour, A great torture of the mind, composed of envy, pride, and covetousness, a gallant madness, one defines it a pleasant poison.

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.

Who cannot give good counsel? T'is cheap, it costs them nothing.

Almost in every kingdom the most ancient families have been at first princes' bastards; their worthiest captains, best wits, greatest scholars, bravest spirits in all our annals, have been base [born].

The Devil himself, which is the author of confusion and lies.

Him that makes shoes go barefoot himself.

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.'

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

Many things happen between the cup and the lip.

Birds of a feather will gather together.

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

Carcasses bleed at the sight of the murderer.

Can build castles in the air.

[Witches] steal young children out of their cradles, ministerio dæmonum, and put deformed in their rooms, which we call changelings.

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

Christ himself was poor.... And as he was himself, so he informed his apostles and disciples, they were all poor, prophets poor, apostles poor.

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

They have consciences that will stretch.

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

To these crocodile tears they will add sobs, fiery sighs, and sorrowful countenance.

[Desire] is a perpetual rack, or horse mill, according to Austin, still going round as in a ring.

[Diseases] crucify the soul of man, attenuate our bodies, dry them, wither them, shrivel them up like old apples, make them so many anatomies.

All places are distant from heaven alike.

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

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.

I say with Didacus Stella, a dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself.

Every man for himself, his own ends, the Devil for all.

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

Diogenes struck the father when the son swore.

Like Æsop's fox, when he had lost his tail, would have all his fellow foxes cut off theirs.

All our geese are swans.

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

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

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

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

If the world will be gulled, let it be gulled.

Hannibal, as he had mighty virtues, so had he many vices; he had two distinct persons in him.

The commonwealth of Venice in their armoury have this inscription: 'Happy is that city which in time of peace thinks of war.'

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

Like a hog, or dog in the manger, he doth only keep it because it shall do nobody else good, hurting himself and others.

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.

Idleness is an appendix to nobility.

For 'ignorance is the mother of devotion,' as all the world knows.

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.

I light my candle from their torches.

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

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

Naught so sweet as melancholy.

Aristotle said melancholy men of all others are most witty.

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

A nightingale dies for shame if another bird sings better.

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

He is only fantastical that is not in fashion.

They do not live but linger.

John. 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.

The fear of some divine and supreme powers keeps men in obedience.

England is a paradise for women and hell for horses; Italy a paradise for horses, hell for women....

Hinc quam sic calamus sævior ense, patet. The pen worse than the sword.

Penny wise, pound foolish.

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

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

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

Like him in Æsop, he whipped his horses withal, and put his shoulder to the wheel.

Though it rain daggers with their points downward.

One religion is as true as another.

Rob Peter, and pay Paul.

Like the watermen that row one way and look another.

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

We can make majors and officers every year, but not scholars; kings can invest knights and barons, as Sigismund the emperor confessed.

Every schoolboy hath that famous testament of Grunnius Corocotta Porcellus at his fingers' end.

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

Smile with an intent to do mischief, or cozen him whom he salutes.

Fabricius finds certain spots and clouds in the sun.

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

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

Tobacco, divine, rare, super excellent tobacco, which goes beyond all their panaceas, potable gold, and philosopher's stones, a sovereign remedy to all diseases.... But, as it is commonly abused by most men, which take it as tinkers do ale, 'tis a plague, a mischief, a violent purger of goods, lands, health, hellish, devilish, and damned tobacco, the ruin and overthrow of body and soul.

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.

Out of too much learning become mad.

Going as if he trod upon eggs.

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

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.

Machiavel says virtue and riches seldom settle on one man.

Make a virtue of necessity.

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

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.

Women wear the breeches.

From this it is clear how much the pen is worse than the sword (Hinc quam sit calamus sævior ense patet.)

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

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

Our wrangling lawyers ... are so litigious and busy here on earth, that I think they will plead their clients' causes hereafter, some of them in hell.

Why doth one man's yawning make another yawn?

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.

A good conscience is a continual feast.

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