“Seneca thinks the gods are well pleased when they see great men contending with adversity.”

— Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part II, Section 2, member 1, subsection 1

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.”

“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.”

Attribution note: Source disputed or unverified.

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”

Attribution note: Source disputed or unverified.

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”

“He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.”

Attribution note: Source disputed or unverified.

“The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life.”

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”