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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
Dream
Hopes
Upward
Men
Absolutes
Aspirations
Absolute
Portion
Unless
Portions
Rest
Sparks
Born
Contentment
Spirit
Aspiration
Brutalized
Nature
Immortality
Quenched

More quotes by Robert Southey

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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.
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There was a time when I believed in the persuadability of man, and had the mania of man-mending. Experience has taught me better. The ablest physician can do little in the great lazar-house of society. He acts the wisest part who retires from the contagion.
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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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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.
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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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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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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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My name is Death: the last best friend am I.
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A stubborn mind conduces as little to wisdom or even to knowledge, as a stubborn temper to happiness
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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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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.
Robert Southey
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Thou hast been called, O sleep, the friend of woe, But 'tis the happy that have called thee so.
Robert Southey
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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.
Robert Southey
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There is another world for all that live and move-a better one!
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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.
Robert Southey
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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.
Robert Southey
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For society, of all places I have ever been, Norwich is the best.
Robert Southey
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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.
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Cupid the little greatest god.
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.
Robert Southey