A friend is the gift of God

 

 People, young and raw, and soft natured, think it an easy thing to gain love, and reckon their own friendship a sure price of any man's; but when experience shall have shewn them the hardness of most hearts, the hollowness of others, and the baseness and ingratitude of almost all, they will then find that a friend is the gift of God, and that he only who made hearts can unite them.

 

-- Robert South

Signs and wonders and miracles, oh my: When you've seen one, you've seen them all

 

  No wonder to us, who have conversed with too many strange actions, now to wonder at any thing: wonder is from surprise, and surprise ceases upon experience.

-- Robert South

The elites have always hated the country boys, but the country boys survive

 As nothing is so rude and insolent as a wealthy rustick, all this his kindness is overlooked, and his person most unworthily railed at.

-- Robert South (1634-1716)

Benevolent night conceals our weakness

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Heaven, when the creature lies prostrate in the weakness of sleep and weariness,

spreads the covering of night and darkness to conceal it.

-- Robert South

The good we love for its own sake we obey

 It is not imaginable that men will be brought to obey what they cannot esteem.

 

-- Robert South

There is a kind of good we love both for its own sake and for its consequences.

-- Plato, Republic II, 357b,c

The foolish blather of the extemporaneous prayer

 The extemporizing faculty is never more out of its element than in the pulpit; though even here, it is much more excusable in a sermon than in a prayer.

-- Robert South

Total depravity means losing the image of God

 

 

 So deplorable is the degradation of our nature, that whereas before we bore the image of God, we now retain only the image of men.

-- Robert South

On aborting Roe v Wade

 Many politic conceptions, so elaborately formed and wrought, and grown at length ripe for delivery, do yet, in the issue, miscarry and prove abortive.

-- Robert South

Why they say "don't let it go to your head"

Fame makes the mind loose and gayish, scatters the spirits, and leaves a kind of dissolution upon all the faculties.

-- Robert South

Make yourself great again

There never was any heart truly great and generous, that was not also tender and compassionate: it is this noble quality that makes all men to be of one kind; for every man would be a distinct species to himself, were there no sympathy among individuals.

-- Robert South

Appearances may be deceiving!

 

Take the picture of a man in the greenness and vivacity of his youth,

 

 

1978

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and in the latter date and declension of his drooping years,

 

2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and you will scarce know it to belong to the same person.

 

-- Robert South (1634-1716)

 

 

When Protestant nonconformism and dissent, especially with regard to the real presence in the sacrament, made you heretical

False religion is, in its nature, the greatest bane and destruction to government in the world.

-- Robert South

Damned into the world, not born

Where a child finds his own parents his perverters, he cannot be so properly born, as damned into the world.

-- Robert South (1634-1716)

Sorrow counts for nothing

If sorrow expresses itself never so loudly and passionately, and discharge itself in never so many tears, yet it will no more purge a man's heart, than the washing of his hands can cleanse the rottenness of his bones.

-- Robert South (1634-1716)

(How to) tell an ignoramus . . .

Tell an ignoramus, in place and power, that he has a wit and an understanding above all the world, and he shall readily admit the commendation.

-- Robert South (1634-1716)

The Cement Holding Together The Whole Creation Is Gratitude

 

Look over the whole creation, and you shall see, that the bond or cement, that holds together all the parts of this great and glorious fabrick, is gratitude.

-- Robert South (1634-1716)

 

Serving others appears to prime the brain to release more oxytocin in a positive feedback loop of increased empathy and gratitude, according to experts.