Source: Il Penseroso (1631), Line 61
“All my joys to this are folly
Naught so sweet as melancholy.”
The Author's Abstract.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)
The Nice Valor (1647), Melancholy. Compare: "Naught so sweet as melancholy", Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy.
“They that govern the most make the least noise.”
Power.
Table Talk (1689)
“My melancholy is the most faithful sweetheart I have had.”
Variant: My melancholy is the most faithful mistress I have known; what wonder, then, that I love her in return.
Source: Either/Or: A Fragment of Life
“Aristotle said melancholy men of all others are most witty.”
Section 3, member 1, subsection 3.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part I
Source: Physics and Politics http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/phypl10.txt (1869), Ch. 5
Context: I wish the art of benefiting men had kept pace with the art of destroying them; for though war has become slow, philanthropy has remained hasty. The most melancholy of human reflections, perhaps, is that, on the whole, it is a question whether the, benevolence of mankind does most good or harm. Great good, no doubt, philanthropy does, but then it also does great evil. It augments so much vice, it multiplies so much suffering, it brings to life such great populations to suffer and to be vicious, that it is open to argument whether it be or be not an evil to the world, and this is entirely because excellent people fancy that they can do much by rapid action — that they will most benefit the world when they most relieve their own feelings; that as soon as an evil is seen "something" ought to be done to stay and prevent it.
