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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.

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
Thinking
Nature
Unnatural
States
Cheerful
May
Marriage
Best
Called
Ever
State
Never
Happy
Men
Action
Celibacy
Think
Feelings
Contented

More quotes by Robert Southey

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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.
Robert Southey
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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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I do not cast my eyes away from my troubles. I pack them in as little compass as I can for myself, and never let them annoy others.
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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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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That charity is bad which takes from independence its proper pride, from mendicity its salutary shame.
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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Be thankful that your lot has fallen on times when, though there may be many evil tongues and exasperated spirits, there are none who have fire and fagot at command.
Robert Southey
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One fault begets another one crime renders another necessary.
Robert Southey
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If you would be pungent, be brief.
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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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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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.
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.
Robert Southey
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Few people give themselves time to be friends.
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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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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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.
Robert Southey
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Love is indestructible, Its holy flame forever burneth From heaven it came, to heaven returneth.
Robert Southey
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The solitary Bee Whose buzzing was the only sound of life, Flew there on restless wing, Seeking in vain one blossom where to fix.
Robert Southey