Robert Burton
» Ambition » “Like dogs in a wheel, birds in a cage, or squirrels in a chain, ambitious men still climb and climb, with great labor, and incessant anxiety, but never reach the top.”
» Death and Dying » “The fear of death is worse than death.”
» Devil » “The devil is the author of confusion.”
» Humility » “They are proud in humility, proud that they are not proud.”
» Idleness » “Idleness is an appendix to nobility.”
» Love » “No cord or cable can draw so forcibly, or bind so fast, as love can do with a single thread.”
» Marriage » “One was never married, and that’s his hell; another is, and that’s his plague.”
» Medicine » “What can’t be cured must be endured.”
» Nationalities and Nationalism » “England is paradise for women, and hell for horses: Italy is a paradise for horses, hell for women.”
» Scholars and Scholarship » “A mere scholar, a mere ass.”
» Smoking » “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.”
» Wine » “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.”
» Words » “A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword.”
