Robert Burton (8 February 1577 – 25 January 1640) was an English writer and scholar at Oxford University (at Christ Church), known chiefly for writing The Anatomy of Melancholy.
Smile with an intent to do mischief, or cozen him whom he salutes.
Like the watermen that row one way and look another.
As that great captain, Ziska, would have a drum made of his skin when he was dead, because he thought the very noise of it would put his enemies to flight.
I had not time to lick it into form, as a bear doth her young ones.
It is most true, stylus virum arguit,—our style bewrays us.
Old friends become bitter enemies on a sudden for toys and small offenses.
I say with Didacus Stella, a dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself.
We can say nothing but what hath been said. Our poets steal from Homer... Our story-dressers do as much; he that comes last is commonly best.
They lard their lean books with the fat of others' works.
I would help others, out of a fellow-feeling.
I had a heavy heart and an ugly head, a kind of impostume in my head, which I was very desirous to be unladen of.
The Chinese say that we Europeans have one eye, they themselves two, all the world else is blinde.
A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword.
All my joys to this are folly Naught so sweet as melancholy.