RSRobert Southey

66 collected words

Robert Southey

Life dates: 1774 AD — 1843 AD

Listed in the author section of Bartlett’s ninth-edition anthology, in the linked 1905 printing. Dates reflect that historical edition and may differ from modern scholarship.

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Quotations and sayings

01Undated

There is healing in the bitter cup.

Robert Southey / quote

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02Undated

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 Southey / quote

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03Undated

If you would be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams—the more they are condensed the deeper they burn.

Robert Southey / quote

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04Undated

Of all sights which can soften and humanize the heart of man, there is none that ought so surely to reach it as that of innocent children enjoying the happiness which is their proper and natural portion.

Robert Southey / quote

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05Undated

There are three things in speech that ought to be considered before some things are spoken—the manner, the place and the time.

Robert Southey / quote

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06Undated

Whoever has tasted the breath of morning, knows that the most invigorating and most delightful hours of the day are commonly spent in bed; though it is the evident intention of Nature that we should enjoy and profit by them.

Robert Southey / quote

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07Undated

As sure as God is good, so surely there is no such thing as necessary evil.

Robert Southey / quote

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08Undated

They who once engage in iniquitous designs miserably deceive themselves when they think that 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 Southey / quote

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09Undated

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

Robert Southey / quote

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10Undated

A man may be cheerful and contented in celibacy, but I do not think he can ever be happy; it is an unnatural state, and the best feelings of his nature are never called into action.

Robert Southey / quote

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11Undated

Order is the sanity of the mind, the health of the body, the peace of the city, the security of the State. As the beams to a house, as the bones to the microcosm of man, so is order to all things.

Robert Southey / quote

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12Undated

Would you judge of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of pleasures, 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 thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself.

Robert Southey / quote

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13Undated

Never let any man imagine that he can pursue a good end by evil means, without sinning against his own soul! Any other issue is doubtful; the evil effect on himself is certain.

Robert Southey / quote

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14Undated

War, even in the best state of an army, with all the alleviations of courtesy and honor, with all the correctives of morality and religion, is nevertheless so great an evil, that to engage in it without a clear necessity is a crime of the blackest dye. When the necessity is clear, it then becomes a crime to shrink from it.

Robert Southey / quote

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15Undated

A good man and a wise man may at times be angry with the world, at times grieved for it; but be sure no man was ever discontented with the world who did his duty in it.

Robert Southey / quote

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16Undated

I make the most of my enjoyments; and as for my troubles, I pack them in as little compass as I can for myself, and never let them annoy others.

Robert Southey / quote

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17Undated

Imagination is a mettled horse that will break the rider's neck when a donkey would have carried him to the end of his journey, slow but sure.

Robert Southey / quote

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18Undated

In heaven ambition cannot dwell, / Nor avarice in the vaults of hell.

Robert Southey / quote

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19Undated

Live as long as you may, the first twenty years are the longest half of your life.

Robert Southey / quote

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20Undated

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 Southey / quote

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21Undated

The march of intellect is proceeding at quick time; and if its progress be not accompanied by a corresponding improvement in morals and religion, the faster it proceeds, with the more violence will you be hurried down the road to ruin.

Robert Southey / quote

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22Undated

Three things that enrich genius are contentment of mind, the cherishing of good thoughts, and the exercise of memory.

Robert Southey / quote

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23Undated

You have no hold on a human being whose affections are without a tap-root!

Robert Southey / quote

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24Undated

There is scarcely any one who may not, like a trout, be taken by tickling.

Robert Southey / quote

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