Robert Southey Quotes
No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other's worth.
Mild arch of promise! on the evening sky Thou shinest fair with many a lovely ray, Each in the other melting.
There is a magic in that little world, home; it is a mystic circle that surrounds comforts and virtues never know beyond its hallowed limits.
It is with words as with sunbeams - the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.
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.
All deception in the course of life is indeed nothing else but a lie reduced to practice, and falsehood passing from words into things.
Let us depart! the universal sun Confines not to one land his blessed beams; Nor is man rooted, like a tree, whose seed, the winds on some ungenial soil have cast there, where it cannot prosper.
It has been more wittily than charitably said that hell is paved with good intentions; they have their place in heaven also.
How beautiful is night! A dewy freshness fills the silent air; No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain, Breaks the serene of heaven.
Never let a man imagine that he can pursue a good end by evil means, without sinning against his own soul. The evil effect on himself is certain.
Not where I breathe, but where I love, I live; Not where I love, but where I am, I die.
Kitten is in the animal world what the rosebud is in the garden; the one the most beautiful of all young creatures, the other the loveliest of all opening flowers.
Love is indestructible, Its holy flame forever burneth; From heaven it came, to heaven returneth.
The loss of a friend is like that of a limb; time may heal the anguish of the wound, but the loss cannot be repaired.
A stubborn mind conduces as little to wisdom or even to knowledge, as a stubborn temper to happiness
There are three things in speech that ought to be considered before some things are spoken--the manner, the place and the time.
Man hath a weary pilgrimage, As through the word he wends; On every stage, from youth to age, Still discontent attends.
Take away love, and not physical nature only, but the heart of the moral world, would be palsied.
A house is never perfectly furnished for enjoyment unless there is a child in it rising three years old, and a kitten rising three weeks.
Whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that is sin to you, however, innocent it may be in itself.
They sin who tell us Love can die: With life all other passions fly, All others are but vanity, In Heaven Ambition cannot dwell, Nor Avarice in the vaults of Hell.
That charity is bad which takes from independence its proper pride, from mendicity its salutary shame.
The grave is but the threshold of eternity. What a world were this, how unendurable its weight, If they whom death hath sundered, did not meet again!
And everybody praised the Duke Who this great fight did win. "But what good came of it at last?" Quoth little Peterkin. "Why, that I cannot tell," said he, "But 'twas a famous victory."
And when my own Mark Antony Against young Caesar strove, And Rome's whole world was set in arms, The cause was,--all for love.
Ay! idleness! the rich folks never fail To find some reason why the poor deserve Their miseries.
Easier were it To hurl the rooted mountain from its base, Than force the yoke of slavery upon men Determin'd to be free.
A fastidious taste is like a squeamish appetite; the one has its origin in some disease of the mind, as the other has in some ailment of the stomach.
"You are old, Father William," the young man cried, "The few locks which are left you are gray; You are hale, Father William, a hearty old man,- Now tell me the reason I pray."
Happy those Who in the after-days shall live, when Time Hath spoken, and the multitude of years Taught wisdom to mankind!
The solitary Bee Whose buzzing was the only sound of life, Flew there on restless wing, Seeking in vain one blossom where to fix.
What blockheads are those wise persons, who think it necessary that a child should comprehend everything it reads.
From his brimstone bed, at break of day, A-walking the Devil is gone, To look at his little snug farm of the World, And see how his stock went on.
Happy it were for us all if we bore prosperity as well and as wisely as we endure adverse fortune.
Without religion the highest endowments of intellect can only render the possessor more dangerous if he be ill disposed; if well disposed, only more unhappy.
Affliction is not sent in vain, young man, from that good God, who chastens whom he loves.
Be thankful that your lot has fallen on times when, though there may be many evil tongues and exasperated spirits, there are none who have fire and fagot at command.
I do not cast my eyes away from my troubles. I pack them in as little compass as I can for myself, and never let them annoy others.
