Robert Burton

Like dogs in a wheel, birds in a cage, or squirrels in a chain, ambitious men still climb and climb, with great labor, and incessant anxiety, but never reach the top.

— Robert Burton

The fear of death is worse than death.

— Robert Burton

The devil is the author of confusion.

— Robert Burton

They are proud in humility, proud that they are not proud.

— Robert Burton

Idleness is an appendix to nobility.

— Robert Burton

No cord nor cable can so forcibly draw, or hold so fast, as love can do with a twined thread.

— Robert Burton

One was never married, and that's his hell; another is, and that's his plague.

— Robert Burton

What can't be cured must be endured.

— Robert Burton

England is paradise for women, and hell for horses: Italy is a paradise for horses, hell for women.

— Robert Burton

A mere scholar, a mere ass.

— Robert Burton

Tobacco, divine, rare, superexcellent tobacco, which goes far beyond all the panaceas, potable gold, and philosophers stones, a sovereign remedy to all diseases but as it is commonly abused by most men, which take it as tinkers do ale, 'Tis a plague, a mischief, a violent purger of goods, lands, health; hellish, devilish and damned tobacco, the ruin and overthrow of body and soul.

— Robert Burton

I may not here omit those two main plagues, and common dotages of human kind, wine and women, which have infatuated and besotted myriads of people. They go commonly together.

— Robert Burton

A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword.

— Robert Burton