119 quotes
Our conscience, which is a great ledger book, wherein are written all our offenses...grinds our souls with the remembrance of some precedent sins, makes us reflect upon, accuse and condemn ourselves.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)
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 Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)
From their folded mates they wander far,
Their ways seem harsh and wild:
They follow the beck of a baleful star,
Their paths are dream-beguiled.
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.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)
I light my candle from their torches.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)
Christ himself was poor... And as he was himself, so he informed his apostles and disciples, they were all poor, prophets poor, apostles poor.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)
Our wrangling lawyers... are so litigious and busy here on earth, that I think they will plead their clients' causes hereafter,—some of them in hell.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)
'Tis a hydra's head contention; the more they strive the more they may: and as Praxiteles did by his glass, when he saw a scurvy face in it, brake it in pieces; but for that one he saw many more as bad in a moment.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)
[Desire] is a perpetual rack, or horsemill, according to Austin, still going round as in a ring.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)
[Quoting Seneca] Cornelia kept her in talk till her children came from school, "and these," said she, "are my jewels."
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)
[The rich] are indeed rather possessed by their money than possessors.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)
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.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)
We are the doubles of those whose way
Was festal with fruits and flowers;
Body and brain we were sound as they,
But the prizes were not ours.
Make a virtue of necessity.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)
Can build castles in the air.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)
Be not solitary, be not idle.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)
They do not live but linger.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)
As he said in Machiavel, omnes eodem patre nati, Adam's sons, conceived all and born in sin, etc. "We are by nature all as one, all alike, if you see us naked; let us wear theirs and they our clothes, and what is the difference?"
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)
Tobacco, divine, rare, superexcellent tobacco, which goes far beyond all the panaceas, potable gold, and philosopher's 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.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)