Robert Southey Quotes - Page 4

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.

The true one of youth's love, proving a faithful helpmate in those years when the dream of life is over, and we live in its realities.

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.

There are some readers who have never read an essay on taste; and if they take my advice they never will, for they can no more improve their taste by so doing than they could improve their appetite or digestion by studying a cookery-book.

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.

And as, when all the summer trees are seen So bright and green, The Holly leaes a sober hue display Less bright than they, But when the bare and wintry woods we see, What then so cheerful as the Holly-tree?

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.

I can remember, with unsteady feet, Tottering from room to room, and finding pleasure In flowers, and toys, and sweetmeats, things which long Have lost their power to please; which when I see them, Raise only now a melancholy wish I were the little trifler once again, Who could be pleas'd so lightly.

For society, of all places I have ever been, Norwich is the best.

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

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.

Mild arch of promise! on the evening sky Thou shinest fair with many a lovely ray, Each in the other melting.

Little, indeed, does it concern us in this our mortal stage, to inquire whence the spirit hath come; but of what infinite concern is the consideration whither it is going. Surely such consideration demands the study of a life.

Ye who dwell at home, Ye do not know the terrors of the main.

Oh, when a mother meets on high The babe she lost in infancy, Hath she not then for pains and fears, The day of woe, the watchful night, For all her sorrow, all her tears, An over-payment of delight?

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

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.

Cupid "the little greatest god."

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.

What blockheads are those wise persons, who think it necessary that a child should comprehend everything it reads.

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

For a young and presumptuous poet a disposition to write satires is one of the most dangerous he can encourage. It tempts him to personalities, which are not always forgiven after he has repented and become ashamed of them.

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.

O Reader! hast thou eer stood to see The Holly-tree? The eye that contemplates it well perceies Its glossy leaes Ordered by an Intelligence so wise As might confound the Atheist's sophistries.

Whatever strengthens our local attachments is favorable both to individual and national character, our home, our birthplace, our native land. Think for a while what the virtues are which arise out of the feelings connected with these words, and if you have any intellectual eyes, you will then perceive the connection between topography and patriotism.