Richard Francis Burton Quotes

#1. Writing allows me the time to travel and see the world, which is what I always wanted to do. I'd really like to have been Sir Richard Francis Burton, but it's the wrong century.

Alan Dean Foster

#2. The dearest ambition of a slave is not liberty, but to have a slave of his own.

Richard Francis Burton

#3. Between 2 and 3 in the morning of the 19th inst. I was aroused by the cry that the enemy was upon us.

Richard Francis Burton

#4. [ ... ] it is not easy to talk [ ... ] religion to men who measure excellence by forbidden meats [ ... ]

Richard Francis Burton

#5. Wherever we halted we were surrounded by wandering troops of Bedouins.

Richard Francis Burton

#6. All so-called revealed religions consist mainly of three portions, a cosmogony more or less mythical, a history more or less falsified, and a moral code more or less pure.

Richard Francis Burton

#7. Conquer thyself, till thou has done this, thou art but a slave; for it is almost as well to be subjected to another's appetite as to thine own.

Richard Francis Burton

#8. Reason is Life's sole arbiter, themagic Laby'rinth's single clue ...

Richard Francis Burton

#9. One death to a man is a serious thing: a dozen neutralize one another.

Richard Francis Burton

#10. Friends of my youth, a last adieu! Haply some day we meet again:
Ye ne'er the self-same men shall meet; the years shall make us other men.

Richard Francis Burton

#11. The wise do not argue therefrom, that the desires of the woman, as long as she is young and strong, are not as real and urgent of those of the man.

Richard Francis Burton

#12. The Now, that indivisible point which studs the length of infinite line Whose ends are nowhere, is thine all , the puny all thou callest thine.

Richard Francis Burton

#13. I was surrounded at the time by about a dozen of the enemy, whose clubs rattled upon me without mercy, and the strokes of my sabre were rendered uncertain by the energetic pushes of an attendant who thus hoped to save me.

Richard Francis Burton

#14. Do what thy manhood bids thee do.

Richard Francis Burton

#15. 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

#16. For each believes his glimm'ering lamp to be the gorgeous light of day.

Richard Francis Burton

#17. Ah! gay the day with shine of sun,
and bright the breeze, and blithe the
throng
Met on the River-bank to play,
when I was young, when I was young

Richard Francis Burton

#18. Of the gladdest moments in human life, methinks, is the departure upon a distant journey into unknown lands. Shaking off with one mighty effort the fetters of Habit, the leaden weight of Routine, the cloak of many Cares and the slavery of Civilization, man feels once more happy.

Richard Francis Burton

#19. The men were wild as ourang-outans, and the women fit only to flog cattle.

Richard Francis Burton

#20. Do what thy manhood bids thee do,
from none but self expect applause.
He noblest lives and noblest dies
who makes and keeps his self-made laws.

Richard Francis Burton

#21. And still the Weaver plies his loom,
whose warp and woof is wretched Man
Weaving th' unpattern'd dark design,
so dark we doubt it owns a plan

Richard Francis Burton

#22. Support a compatriot against a native, however the former may blunder or plunder.

Richard Francis Burton

#23. Shaking off, with one mighty effort the fetters of habit, the leaden weight of routine, the cloak of many cares and the slavery of home, man feels once more happy.

Richard Francis Burton

#24. I'd like to be born the son of a duke with 90,000 pounds a year, on an enormous estate ... And I'd like to have the most enormous library, and I'd like to think that I could read those books forever and forever, and die unlamented, unknown, unsung, unhonored - and packed with information.

Richard Francis Burton

#25. If you can't laugh together in bed, the chances are you are incompatible, anyway. I'd rather hear a girl laugh well than try to turn me on with long, silent, soulful, secret looks. If you can laugh with a woman, everything else falls into place.

Richard Francis Burton

#26. When doctors differ who decides amid the milliard-headed throng?

Richard Francis Burton

#27. Broke is a temporary condition, poor is a state of mind.

Richard Francis Burton

#28. Travellers, like poets, are mostly an angry race: by falling into a daily fit of passion, I proved to the governor and his son, who were profuse in their attentions, that I was in earnest.

Richard Francis Burton

#29. The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshiped anything but himself.

Richard Francis Burton

#30. Man remembers and combines but does not create.

Richard Francis Burton

#31. All faith is false, all faith is true. Truth is the shattered mirror strown in myriad bits, while each believes his little bit the whole to own.

Richard Francis Burton

#32. Little islands are all large prisons; one cannot look at the sea without wishing for the wings of a swallow.

Richard Francis Burton