Inspirational Quotes by Robert South (English Theologian)

My notions of life are much the same as they are about travelling; there is a good deal of amusement on the road, but, after all, one wants to be at rest.
—Robert South

He whose heart is not excited on the spot which a martyr has sanctified by his sufferings, or at the grave of one who has greatly benefited mankind, must be more inferior to the multitude in his moral, than he possibly can be above them in his intellectual nature.
—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

While actions are always to be judged by the immutable standard of right and wrong, the judgments we pass upon men must be qualified by considerations of age, country, station, and other accidental circumstances; and it will then be found that he who is most charitable in his judgment is generally the least unjust.
—Robert South
Topics: Judgment, Charity

No man’s religion ever survives his morals.
—Robert South
Topics: Religion

The mind of a proud man is like a mushroom, which starts up in a night: his business is first to forget himself, and then his friends.
—Robert South
Topics: Pride

I know no blessing so small as to be reasonably expected without prayer, nor any so great but may be attained by it.
—Robert South
Topics: Prayer

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

Innocence is like polished armor; it adorns and defends.
—Robert South
Topics: Innocence

Faith in the hereafter is as necessary for the intellectual, as for the moral character; and to the man of letters, as well as the Christian, the present forms but the slightest portion of his existence.
—Robert South
Topics: Immortality

Easier were it to hurl the rooted mountain from its base, than force the yoke of slavery upon men determined to be free.
—Robert South
Topics: Liberty

There are three things that ought to be considered before some things are spoken,—the manner, the place, and the time.
—Robert South
Topics: Speaking, Speech

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
Topics: Will

We are to carry manner from the hand to the heart, to improve a ceremonial nicety into a substantial duty and the modes of civility into the realities of religion.
—Robert South
Topics: Manners

There is no security in a good disposition if the support of good principles, that is to say, of religion—of Christian faith, be wanting.—It may be soured by misfortune, corrupted by wealth, blighted by neediness, and lose all its original brightness, if destitute of that support.
—Robert South

Defeat should never be a source of discouragement, but rather a fresh stimulus.
—Robert South
Topics: Mistakes, Failures, Failure, Fresh, Defeat

A miracle is a work exceeding the power of any created agent, consequently being an effect of the divine omnipotence.
—Robert South
Topics: Miracles

There is no weariness like that which rises from doubting—from the perpetual jogging of unfixed reason.—The torment of suspense is very great; but as soon as the wavering, perplexed mind begins to determine, be the determination which way so ever it may be, it will find itself at ease.
—Robert South
Topics: Doubt, Uncertainty

Prodigality is the devil’s steward and purse-bearer, ministering to all sorts of vice; and it is hard, if not impossible, for a prodigal person to be guilty of no other vice but prodigality. For men generally are prodigal because they are first intemperate, luxurious, or ambitious. And these, we know, are vices too costly to be kept and maintained at an easy rate; they must have large pensions, and be fed with both hands, though the man that feeds them starves for his pains.
—Robert South

Abstinence is the great strengthener and clearer of reason.
—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

Novelty is the great parent of pleasure.
—Robert South
Topics: Pleasure

Every gross act of sin is much the same thing to the conscience that a great blow is to the head; it stuns and bereaves it of all use of its senses for a time.
—Robert South
Topics: Sin

Defeat should never be a source of discouragement, but rather a fresh stimulus.
—Robert South

Love covers a multitude of sins. When a scar cannot be taken away, the next kind office is to hide it.—Love is never so blind as when it is to spy faults.—It is like the painter, who, being to draw the picture of a friend having a blemish in one eye, would picture only the other side of his face.—It is a noble and great thing to cover the blemishes and to excuse the failings of a friend; to draw a curtain before his stains, and to display his perfections; to bury his weaknesses in silence, but to proclaim his virtues upon the house-top.
—Robert South
Topics: Love

The Scripture vouches Solomon for the wisest of men; and his proverbs prove him so. The seven wise men of Greece, so famous for their wisdom all the world over, acquired all that fame each of them by a single sentence, consisting of two or three words.
—Robert South
Topics: Proverbs

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

There never was any heart truly great and generous that was not also tender and compassionate.
—Robert South
Topics: Kindness, Compassion, Greatness, Heart

He who has no mind to trade with the devil, should be so wise as to keep away from his shop.
—Robert South
Topics: Temptation

Beasts, birds, and insects, even to the minutest and meanest of their kind, act with the unerring providence of instinct; man, the while, who possesses a higher faculty, abuses it, and therefore goes blundering on. They, by their unconscious and unhesitating obedience to the laws of nature, fulfill the end of their existence; he, in willful neglect of the laws of God, loses sight of the end of his.
—Robert South

It is not for man to rest in absolute contentment. He is born to hopes and aspirations as the sparks fly upward, unless he has brutified his nature and quenched the spirit of immortality which is his portion.
—Robert South
Topics: Dreams, Goal, Aspirations

If there were not a minister in every parish, you would quickly find cause to increase the number of constables; and if churches were not employed as places to hear God’s law, there would be need of them to be prisons for law-breakers.
—Robert South

Live as long as you may, the first twenty years are the longest half of your life.
—Robert South
Topics: Age, Birthdays

Men must love the truth before they thoroughly believe it.
—Robert South
Topics: Truth

Would you judge of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of pleasure, take this rule: whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself.
—Robert South
Topics: Pleasure

Were there but one virtuous man in the world, he would hold up his head with confidence and honor; he would shame the world, and not the world him.
—Robert South
Topics: Virtue

That charity is bad which takes from independence its proper pride, and from mendicity its proper shame.
—Robert South
Topics: Charity

Wisdom is the name God gives to religion, so telling the world what it will hardly believe, that the two great things which so engross the desire and designs of both the nobler and ignobler sort of mankind, are to be found in religion, viz.: wisdom and pleasure, and that the former is the direct way to the latter, as religion is to both.
—Robert South
Topics: Wisdom

To make our reliance upon providence both pious and rational, we should prepare all things with the same care, diligence, and activity, as if there were no such thing as providence for us to depend upon; and then, when we have done all this, we should as wholly and humbly rely upon it, as if we had made no preparation at all.
—Robert South

Philosophy is of two kinds: that which relates to conduct, and that which relates to knowledge. The first teaches us to value all things at their real worth, to be contented with little, modest in prosperity, patient in trouble, equal-minded at all times. It teaches us our duty to our neighbor and ourselves. But it is he who possesses both that is the true philosopher. The more he knows, the more he is desirous of knowing; and yet the farther he advances in knowledge, the better he understands how little he can attain, and the more deeply he feels that God alone can satisfy the infinite desires of an immortal soul. To understand this is the height and perfection of philosophy.
—Robert South
Topics: Philosophy

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