Robert South (1634–1716) was an English theologian and preacher. He was known for his vigorous preaching and his Latin poetry.
Born in Hackney, London, South was educated at Westminster and Christ Church-Oxford. He accepted Presbyterianism for a time, but he received orders in secret in 1658 and, was appointed public orator of Oxford in 1660. His sermons, which are full of contempt of the Puritans, roused the reinstated royalists.
South became a family chaplain to Edward, 1st Earl Clarendon, prebendary of Westminster (1663,) canon of Christ Church (1670,) and rector at Islip (1678,) but his bluntness limited further preferment. He acquiesced in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 but strongly opposed the Comprehension of dissenters’ scheme in 1689.
South published a large number of sermons, and they appeared in a collected form in 1692 in six volumes, reaching a second edition in his lifetime in 1715. His Sermons on Several Occasions was published in 1878.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Robert South
Action is the highest perfection and drawing forth of the utmost power, vigor, and activity of man’s nature.
—Robert South
Topics: Action
Little, indeed, does it concern us in this our mortal stage, to inquire whence the spirit hath come; but of what infinite concern is the consideration whither it is going. Surely such consideration demands the study of a life.
—Robert South
Topics: Soul
If there be any truer measure of a man than by what he does, it must be by what he gives.
—Robert South
Topics: Action, Giving
No man ever offended his own conscience, but first or last it was revenged upon him for it.
—Robert South
Topics: Conscience
Be thankful that your lot has fallen on times when, though there may be many evil tongues and exasperated spirits, there are none who have fire and fagot at command.
—Robert South
A true friend is the gift of God, and he only who made hearts can unite them.
—Robert South
Topics: Friendship
Wonder is from surprise, and surprise stops with experience.
—Robert South
Topics: Knowledge
The history of any private family, however humble, could it be fully related for five or six generations, would illustrate the state and progress of society better than the most elaborate dissertation.
—Robert South
Topics: Society
What blockheads are those wise persons, who think it necessary that a child should comprehend everything it reads.
—Robert South
Topics: Understanding, Reading
True repentance has a double aspect; it looks upon things past with a weeping eye, and upon the future with a watchful eye.
—Robert South
Let not him who prays, suffer his tongue to outstrip his heart; nor presume to carry a message to the throne of grace, while that stays behind.
—Robert South
Topics: Prayer
He that despairs measures Providence by his own little contracted model and limits infinite power to finite apprehensions.
—Robert South
Topics: Despair
Speech was given to the ordinary sort of men, whereby to communicate their mind; but to wise men, whereby to conceal it.
—Robert South
Topics: Speech
They who engage in iniquitous designs miserably deceive themselves when they think they will go so far and no farther; one fault begets another; one crime renders another necessary; and thus they are impelled continually downward into a depth of guilt, which at the commencement of their career they would have died rather than have incurred.
—Robert South
Topics: Guilt
Whoever has tasted the breath of morning, knows that the most invigorating and delightful hours of the day are commonly spent in bed, though it is the evident intention of nature that we should profit by them.
—Robert South
It is quite right that there should be a heavy duty on cards; not only on moral grounds; not only because they act on a social party like a torpedo, silencing the merry voice and numbing the play of the features; not only to fill the hunger of the public purse, which is always empty, however much you may put into it; but also because every pack of cards is a malicious libel on courts, and on the world, seeing that the trumpery with number one at the head is the best part of them; and that it gives kings and queens no other companions than knaves.
—Robert South
No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other’s worth.
—Robert South
Topics: Friends and Friendship
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.
—Robert South
Topics: Reputation
Covetousness is both the beginning and end of the devil’s alphabet—the first vice in corrupt nature that moves, and the last which dies.
—Robert South
The vices of old age have the stiffness of it too; and as it is the unfittest time to learn in, so the unfitness of it to unlearn will be found much greater.
—Robert South
Topics: Age
How inevitably does an immoderate laughter end in a sigh!
—Robert South
Topics: Laughter
Defeat should never be a source of discouragement, but rather a fresh stimulus.
—Robert South
Topics: Failures, Mistakes, Fresh, Failure, Defeat
The creator made us to be the image of his own eternity, and in the desire for immortality we feel we have sure proof of our capacity for it.
—Robert South
No man’s religion ever survives his morals.
—Robert South
Topics: Religion
He who would fight the devil with his own weapons, must not wonder if he finds him an overmatch.
—Robert South
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.
—Robert South
Topics: Guilt
Take away love, and not physical nature only, but the heart of the moral world would be palsied.
—Robert South
Topics: Love
Nothing is so haughty and assuming as ignorance where self-conceit sets up to be infallible.
—Robert South
Topics: Ignorance
How little do they see what really is, who frame their hasty judgment upon that which seems.
—Robert South
Topics: Appearance, Judgment
A good man and a wise man may, at times, be angry with the world, and at times grieved for it; but no man was ever discontented with the world if he did his duty in it.
—Robert South
Topics: World, Anger, Discontent
Whatever the will commands the whole man must do; the empire of the will over all the faculties being absolutely over-ruling and despotic.
—Robert South
A fastidious taste is like a squeamish appetite; the one has its origin in some disease of the mind, as the other has in some ailment of the stomach.
—Robert South
Topics: Taste
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