Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Robert Burton (English Scholar, Clergyman)

Robert Burton (1577–1640) was an English scholar, writer, and Anglican clergyman. His Anatomy of Melancholy is a masterpiece of style and a valuable index to the science of his time, mixed with astrology, meteorology, psychology, theology, and rich, old-fashioned kidology.

Born in Lindley, Leicestershire, Burton was educated at Brasenose College-Oxford, and in 1599 was elected a student of Christ Church and earned a bachelor of divinity in 1614. He worked as the vicar of St Thomas the Martyr’s Church-Oxford, in 1616 and at the rectory of Segrave, Leicestershire, since 1630. He kept both livings but spent his life at Christ Church, where he died.

Burton’s first work was the Latin comedy Philosophaster (1606; edited with an English translation by P. Jordan-Smith, 1931,) a vivacious exposure of charlatanism that has affinities with Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist. It was acted at Christ Church in 1618.

The first edition of Burton’s masterpiece, Anatomy of Melancholy, was written under the pseudonym ‘Democritus Junior,’ and appeared in quarto in 1621 (final, sixth edition, 1651–52.) This strange book is a vast and witty compendium of Jacobean knowledge about the ‘disease’ of melancholy, its causes, and the symptoms. It was gathered from classical and medieval writers, as well as folklore and superstition. One of the most exciting parts is the long preface, ‘Democritus to the Reader,’ in which Burton indirectly accounts for himself and his studies.

The Anatomy was widely read in the 17th century, but it lapsed into obscurity for a while. In the 18th century, Samuel Johnson admired it, and Laurence Sterne borrowed from it. In the 19th century, the devotion of Charles Lamb helped to bring the Anatomy into favor with the Romantics and inspired intellectuals from John Keats to Cy Twombly. The standard modern edition is the edition The Anatomy of Melancholy (6 vol., 1989–2000.)

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Robert Burton

No cord or cable can draw so forcibly, or bind so fast, as love can do with a single thread.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Love

Birds of a feather will gather together.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Birds

Tobacco, divine, rare, superexcellent tobacco, which goes far beyond all the panaceas, potable gold, and philosophers 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.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Smoking

Seem not greater than thou art.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Greatness

The fear of death is worse than death.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Dying, Death

Conquer thyself. Till thou has done this, thou art but a slave; for it is almost as well to be subjected to another’s appetite as to thine own.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Self-Control

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

One religion is as true as another.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Religion

Call a spade a spade.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Names

Every other sin hath some pleasure annexed to it, or will admit of an excuse; envy alone wants both. Other sins last but for awhile; the gut may be satisfied, anger remits, hatred hath an end, envy never ceaseth.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Jealousy, Love

A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Support

Be not solitary, be not idle
—Robert Burton
Topics: Idleness

The greatest provocations of lust are from our apparel.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Desires

Comparisons are odious.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Comparisons

The passions and desires, like the two twists of a rope, mutually mix one with the other, and twine inextricably round the heart; producing good, if moderately indulged; but certain destruction, if suffered to become inordinate.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Desire, Passion

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

A mere scholar, a mere ass.
—Robert Burton

There is no greater cause of melancholy than idleness.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Idleness

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

Humor purges the blood, making the body young, lively, and fit for any manner of employment.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Humor

He is only fantastical that is not in fashion.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Fashion

England is a paradise for women and hell for horses; Italy a paradise for horses, hell for women, as the diverb goes.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Horses

He that will not when he may, When he will he shall have nay
—Robert Burton
Topics: One liners

The attachments of mere mirth are but the shadows of that true friendship of which the sincere affections of the heart are the substance.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Friendship

A nightingale dies for shame if another bird sings better.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Shame

For “ignorance is the mother of devotion,” as all the world knows.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Ignorance

Build castles in the air.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Imagination

One was never married. and that’s his hell; another is, and that’s his plague.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Marriage

The devil is the author of confusion.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Evil

Every man hath a good and a bad angel attending on him in particular, all his life long.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Evil

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