Robert Burton

“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.”

“The men who succeed are the efficient few.  They are the few who have the ambition and will power to develop themselves.”

“Old friends become bitter enemies on a sudden for toys and small offenses.”

“Every man hath a good and a bad angel attending on him in particular all his life long.”

“No cord or cable can draw so forcibly, or bind so fast, as love can do with a single thread.”

“To enlarge or illustrate this power and effect of love is to set a candle in the sun.”

“What is life, when wanting love?  Night without a morning; love’s the cloudless summer sun, nature gay adorning.”

“Great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion.”

“Worldly wealth is the Devil’s bait; and those whose minds feed upon riches recede, in general, from real happiness, in proportion as their stores increase, as the moon, when she is fullest, is farthest from the sun.”

“A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword.”

“A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself.”

“A good conscience is a continual feast.”

“A quiet mind cureth all.”

“Almost in every kingdom the most ancient families have been at first princes’ bastards.”

“Idleness is an appendix to nobility.”

“No rule is so general, which admits not some exception.”

“One was never married, and that’s his hell; another is, and that’s his plague.”

“We can make mayors and officers every year, but not scholars.”