Quotes from Robert South

Passion is the drunkenness of the mind.

Speech was given to the ordinary sort of men, whereby to communicate their mind but to wise men, whereby to conceal it.

Truth will lose its credit, if delivered by a person that has none.

Speech was given to the ordinary sort or men, whereby to communicate their mind; but to wise men, whereby to conceal it.

God expects from men something more than at such times, and that it were much to be wished for the credit of their religion as well as the satisfaction of their conscience that their Easter devotions would in some measure come up to their Easter dress.

Wonder is from surprise, and surprise stops with experience.

In all worldly things that a man pursues with the greatest eagerness he finds not half the pleasure in the possession that he proposed to himself in the expectation.

Most of the appearance of mirth in the world is not mirth, it is art. The wounded spirit is not seen, but walks under a disguise.

If there be any truer measure of a man than by what he does, it must be by what he gives.

Defeat should never be a source of discouragement but rather a fresh stimulus.

The seven wise men of Greece, so famous for their wisdom all the world over, acquired all that fame, each of them, by a single sentence consisting of two or three words.

Truth will lose its credit, if delivered by a person that has none.

The mind begins to boggle at unnatural substances as things paradoxical and incomprehensible.

Anger is a transient hatred; or at least very like it.

It is the work of fancy to enlarge, but of judgment to shorten and contract; and therefore this must be as far above the other as judgment is a greater and nobler faculty than fancy or imagination.

Similes prove nothing, but yet greatly lighten and relieve the tedium of argument.

Guilt upon the conscience, like rust upon iron, both defiles and consumes it, gnawing and creeping into it, as that does which at last eats out the very heart and substance of the metal.

Society is built upon trust.