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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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Robert Southey
Age: 68 †
Born: 1774
Born: August 12
Died: 1843
Died: March 21
Biographer
Historian
Poet
Politician
Translator
Writer
Bristol
Gloucestershire
Robert Southey
Little
Believed
Contagion
Great
Taught
Mania
Men
Society
Physician
Time
Experience
Wisest
House
Philanthropy
Part
Physicians
Ablest
Littles
Retiring
Retires
Better
Acts
Mending

More quotes by Robert Southey

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Cold is thy hopeless heart, even as charity.
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 days among the dead are passed Around me I behold, Where'er these casual eyes are cast, The mighty minds of old My never-failing friends are they, With whom I converse day by day.
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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If you would be pungent, be brief.
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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All deception in the course of life is indeed nothing else but a lie reduced to practice, and falsehood passing from words into things.
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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For society, of all places I have ever been, Norwich is the best.
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.
Robert Southey
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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.
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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My name is Death: the last best friend am I.
Robert Southey
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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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By writing much, one learns to write well.
Robert Southey
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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.
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.
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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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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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