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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
Better
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Mending
Little
Believed
Contagion
Great
Taught
Mania
Men
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Retiring
Retires

More quotes by 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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Three things a wise man will not trust, The wind, the sunshine of an April day, And woman's plighted faith.
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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.
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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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By writing much, one learns to write well.
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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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.
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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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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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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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There is a magic in that little world, home it is a mystic circle that surrounds comforts and virtues never know beyond its hallowed limits.
Robert Southey
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In the days of my youth I remembered my God! And He hath not forgotten my age.
Robert Southey
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Our restlessness in this world seems to indicate that we are intended for a better. We have all of us a longing after happiness and surely the Creator will gratify all the natural desires he has implanted in us.
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.
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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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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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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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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
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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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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.
Robert Southey