Richard Francis Burton: Trending quotes (page 4)

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“I have struggled for forty-seven years, distinguishing myself honourably in every way that I possibly could. I never had a compliment, nor a "thank you," nor a single farthing. I translate a doubtful book in my old age, and I immediately make sixteen thousand guineas. Now that I know the tastes of England, we need never be without money.”

Richard Francis Burton

As quoted in The Life of Captain Sir Richd. F. Burton, Vol. II (1893), by Lady Isabel Burton, p. 442

Money , Books , Age , Way

“"Faith mountains move" I hear: I see the practice of the world unheed
The foolish vaunt, the blatant boast that serves our vanity to feed. "Faith stands unmoved"; and why? Because man's silly fancies still remain,
And will remain till wiser man the day-dreams of his youth disdain.”

Richard Francis Burton

The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

Youth , World , Faith , Dreams

“"Th' immortal mind of mortal man!" we hear yon loud-lunged Zealot cry;
Whose mind but means his sum of thought, an essence of atomic "I." Thought is the work of brain and nerve, in small-skulled idiot poor and mean;
In sickness sick, in sleep asleep, and dead when Death lets drop the scene.”

Richard Francis Burton

The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

Death , Sleep , Cry , Dead

“Cease, Man, to mourn, to weep, to wail; enjoy thy shining hour of sun;
We dance along Death's icy brink, but is the dance less full of fun?”

Richard Francis Burton

The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

Death , Sun , Dance

“The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.”

Richard Francis Burton

The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night (1885) Terminal Essay: Social Conditions, fn. 13.

Religion , Study

“Reason is Life's sole arbiter, the magic Laby'rinth's single clue:
Worlds lie above, beyond its ken; what crosses it can ne'er be true.”

Richard Francis Burton

The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

Life , Lie , World

“What call ye them or Goods or Ills, ill-goods, good-ills, a loss, a gain,
When realms arise and falls a roof; a world is won, a man is slain?”

Richard Francis Burton

The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

World , Loss

“As palace mirror'd in the stream, as vapour mingled with the skies,
So weaves the brain of mortal man the tangled web of Truth and Lies.”

Richard Francis Burton

The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

Truth

“So much to learn!
Old Nature's ways
Of glee and gloom with rapt amaze
To study, probe, and paint – brown earth,
Salt sea, blue heavens, their tilth and dearth,
Birds, grasses, trees – the natural things
That throb or grope or poise on wings.”

Richard Francis Burton

Richard Eugene Burton, Memorial Day, And Other Poems (1897), 'So Much to Learn', p. 8
Misattributed

Way , Nature , Bird , Tree

“Man worships self: his God is Man; the struggling of the mortal mind
To form its model as 'twould be, the perfect of itself to find.”

Richard Francis Burton

The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

God , Perfection

“"Who drinks one bowl hath scant delight; to poorest passion he was born;
"Who drains the score must e'er expect to rue the headache of the morn."
Safely he jogs along the way which "Golden Mean" the sages call;
Who scales the brow of frowning Alp must face full many a slip and fall.”

Richard Francis Burton

The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

Way , Drink , Passion

“"Reason and Instinct!" How we love to play with words that please our pride;
Our noble race's mean descent by false forged titles seek to hide! For "gift divine" I bid you read the better work of higher brain,
From Instinct diff'ering in degree as golden mine from leaden vein.”

Richard Francis Burton

The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

Love , Reading , Falseness

“Ah! where shall weary man take sanctuary,
where live his little span of life secure?
and 'scape of Heav'n serene th' indignant storms
that launch their thunders at us earthen worms?”

Richard Francis Burton

Translation of The Lusiads, Canto I, st. 106, p. 40

Life

“A man that hoards up riches and enjoys them not, is like an ass that carries gold and eats thistles.”

Richard Francis Burton

17th century proverb
Misattributed

“Fools rush where Angels fear to tread!”

Richard Francis Burton

Angels and Fools have equal claim
To do what Nature bids them do, sans hope of praise, sans fear of blame!
The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

Fear , Fools , Angels

“Reason and Instinct!”

Richard Francis Burton

How we love to play with words that please our pride;
Our noble race's mean descent by false forged titles seek to hide! <p> For "gift divine" I bid you read the better work of higher brain,
From Instinct diff'ering in degree as golden mine from leaden vein.
The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

“Who drinks one bowl hath scant delight; to poorest passion he was born;
"Who drains the score must e'er expect to rue the headache of the morn.”

Richard Francis Burton

Safely he jogs along the way which "Golden Mean" the sages call;
Who scales the brow of frowning Alp must face full many a slip and fall.
The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

Passion , Drink

“Starting in a hollowed log of wood — some thousand miles up a river, with an infinitesimal prospect of returning! I ask myself 'Why?”

Richard Francis Burton

and the only echo is 'damned fool!... the Devil drives'.
Burton to Lord Houghton as quoted in The Devil Drives: A life of Sir Richard Burton (1984) by Fawn Brodie.