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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.

Robert Southey

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Robert Southey
Age: 68 †
Born: 1774
Born: August 12
Died: 1843
Died: March 21
Biographer
Historian
Poet
Politician
Translator
Writer
Bristol
Gloucestershire
Robert Southey
Unless
Portions
Rest
Sparks
Born
Contentment
Aspiration
Brutalized
Spirit
Immortality
Quenched
Nature
Hopes
Upward
Dream
Absolutes
Aspirations
Men
Absolute
Portion

More quotes by Robert Southey

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Whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that is sin to you, however, innocent it may be in itself.
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The history of any private family, however humble, could it be fully related for five or six generations, would illustrate the state and progress of society better than the most elaborate dissertation.
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What will not woman, gentle woman dare when strong affection stirs her spirit up?
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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.
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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.
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Few people give themselves time to be friends.
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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.
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Man hath a weary pilgrimage, As through the word he wends On every stage, from youth to age, Still discontent attends.
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If you would be pungent, be brief.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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That charity is bad which takes from independence its proper pride, from mendicity its salutary shame.
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No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other's worth.
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Thou hast been called, O sleep, the friend of woe, But 'tis the happy that have called thee so.
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A wise judge, by the craft of the law, was never seduced from its purpose.
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They sin who tell us love can die With life all other passions fly, All others are but vanity. Love is indestructible, Its holy flame forever burneth From heaven it came, to heaven returneth. It soweth here with toil and care, But the harvest-time of love is there.
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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.
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My name is Death: the last best friend am I.
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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.
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