Robert Burton

Who was Robert Burton?

Robert Burton was an English scholar at Oxford University, best known for the classic The Anatomy of Melancholy. He was also the incumbent of St Thomas the Martyr, Oxford, and of Seagrave in Leicestershire.

Famous Quotes:

• No cord nor cable can so forcibly draw, or hold so fast, as love can do with a twined thread.
• 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.
• One was never married, and that's his hell; another is, and that's his plague.
• 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.
• Idleness is an appendix to nobility.
• 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.
• A mere scholar, a mere ass.
• England is paradise for women, and hell for horses: Italy is a paradise for horses, hell for women.
• A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword.
• The devil is the author of confusion.