Robert Southey Quotes

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.

It has been more wittily than charitably said that hell is paved with good intentions; they have their place in heaven also.

In fall-orbed glory, yonder moon divine, Rolls through the dark blue depths.

Whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that is sin to you, however, innocent it may be in itself.

Not where I breathe, but where I love, I live; Not where I love, but where I am, I die.

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.

The three indispensable of genius are: understanding, feeling, and perseverance; the three things that enrich genius are: contentment of mind, the cherishing of good thoughts, and the exercise of memory

Take away love, and not physical nature only, but the heart of the moral world, would be palsied.

Happy it were for us all if we bore prosperity as well and as wisely as we endure adverse fortune.

The laws are with us, and God on our side.

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

Beware of those who are homeless by choice! You have no hold on human being whose affections are without a top-root!

I have told you of the Spaniard who always put on his spectacles when about to eat cherries, that they might look bigger and more attempting. In like manner I made the most of my enjoyment s: and through I do not cast my cares away, I pack them in as little compass as I can, and carry them as conveniently as I can for myself, and never let them annoy others.

My days among the dead are passed; Around me I behold, Where'er these casual eyes are cast, The mighty minds of old; My never-failing friends are they, With whom I converse day by day.

Where Washington hath left His awful memory A light for after times!

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.

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

Live as long as you may, the first twenty years are the longest half of your life. They appear so while they are passing; they seem to have been so when we look back on them; and they take up more room in our memory than all the years that succeed them.

The pulpit is a clergyman's parade; the parish is his field of active service.

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 brutalized his nature and quenched the spirit of immortality which is his portion.

Would you who 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.

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.

By writing much, one learns to write well.

Affliction is not sent in vain, young man, from that good God, who chastens whom he loves.

I cannot believe in an eternity of hell. I hope God will forgive me if I err; but in this matter I cannot say, "Lord help my unbelief."

Give me a room whose every nook is dedicated to a book.

There is another world for all that live and move-a better one!

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.

That charity is bad which takes from independence its proper pride, from mendicity its salutary shame.

Our restlessness in this world seems to indicate that we are intended for a better. We have all of us a longing after happiness; and surely the Creator will gratify all the natural desires he has implanted in us.

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.