Robert Southey
Robert Southey was an English poet of the Romantic school, one of the so-called "Lake Poets", and Poet Laureate. Although his fame tends to be eclipsed by that of his contemporaries and friends William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Southey's verse enjoys enduring popularity. Moreover, he was a prolific letter writer, literary scholar, historian and biographer. His biographies include the life and works of John Bunyan, John Wesley, William Cowper, Oliver Cromwell and Horatio Nelson. The latter has rarely been out of print since its publication in 1813 and was adapted for the screen in the 1926 British film, Nelson.
Southey was also a renowned Portuguese and Spanish scholar, translating a number of works of those two countries into English and writing both a History of Brazil (part of his planned History of Portugal which was never completed) and a History of the Peninsular War. Perhaps his most enduring contribution to literary history is the immortal children's classic, The Story of the Three Bears, the original Goldilocks story.
“Live as long as you may, the first twenty years are the longest half of your life. They appear so while they are passing; they seem to have been so when we look back on them; and they take up more room in our memory than all the years that succeed them.”
“If you would be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams. The more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.”
“The loss of a friend is like that of a limb; time may heal the anguish of the wound, but the loss cannot be repaired.”
“No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of thosewho are throughout persuaded of each other's worth”
“It is with words as with sunbeams, the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn. ”
“Give me a room whose every nook is dedicated to a book.”