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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.

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
Dangerous
Personalities
Write
Satire
Become
Disposition
Young
Forgiven
Writing
Encourage
Satires
Always
Ashamed
Repented
Personality
Tempts
Poet
Presumptuous

More quotes by Robert Southey

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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.
Robert Southey
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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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All deception in the course of life is indeed nothing else but a lie reduced to practice, and falsehood passing from words into things.
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Ye who dwell at home, Ye do not know the terrors of the main.
Robert Southey
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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!
Robert Southey
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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.
Robert Southey
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My name is Death: the last best friend am I.
Robert Southey
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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.
Robert Southey
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A wise judge, by the craft of the law, was never seduced from its purpose.
Robert Southey
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Give me a room whose every nook is dedicated to a book.
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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Affliction is not sent in vain, young man, from that good God, who chastens whom he loves.
Robert Southey
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Live as long as you may, the first twenty years are the longest half of your life.
Robert Southey
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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.
Robert Southey
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What will not woman, gentle woman dare when strong affection stirs her spirit up?
Robert Southey
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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.
Robert Southey
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She comes majestic with her swelling sails, The gallant Ship: along her watery way, Homeward she drives before the favouring gales Now flirting at their length the streamers play, And now they ripple with the ruffling breeze.
Robert Southey
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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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Cupid the little greatest god.
Robert Southey
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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.
Robert Southey