“Old friends become bitter enemies on a sudden for toys and small offenses.”

— Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Democritus Junior to the Reader

About Robert Burton

1577 – 1640

English scholar, author of "The Anatomy of Melancholy".

“I would help others out of a fellow-feeling.”

“All my joys to this are folly / Naught so sweet as melancholy.”

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

“Thou canst not joke an Enemy into a Friend; but thou may'st a Friend into an Enemy.”

“While both are dear, piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.”

“But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!”

“If you would keep your Secret from an enemy, tell it not to a friend.”

“Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.”

“I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”