Charles Lamb Quotes

Go where glory waits thee! But while fame elates thee, Oh, still remember me!

How sickness enlarges the dimensions of a man's self to himself! Supreme selfishness is inculcated upon him as his only duty.

Who first invented work, and bound the free And holiday-rejoicing spirit down . . . . To that dry drudgery at the desk's dead wood? . . . . Sabbathless Satan!

Gone before To that unknown and silent shore.

The laws of Pluto's kingdom know small difference between king and cobbler, manager and call-boy; and, if haply your dates of life were conterminant, you are quietly taking your passage, cheek by cheek (O ignoble levelling of Death) with the shade of some recently departed candle-snuffer.

I have been trying all my life to like Scotchmen, and am obliged to desist from the experiment in despair.

A book reads the better which is our own, and has been so long known to us, that we know the topography of its blots, and dog's ears, and can trace the dirt in it to having read it at tea with buttered muffins.

Riddle of destiny, who can show What thy short visit meant, or know What thy errand here below?

Clap an extinguisher upon your irony if you are unhappily blessed with a vein of it.

Nothing to me is more distasteful than that entire complacency and satisfaction which beam in the countenances of a new married couple; in that of the lady particularly; it tells you that her lot is disposed of in this world; that you can have no hopes for her.

For God's sake (I never was more serious) don't make me ridiculous any more by terming me gentle-hearted in print.

Let us live for the beauty of our own reality.

Your absence of mind we have borne, till your presence of body came to be called in question by it.

A child's nature is too serious a thing to admit of its being regarded as a mere appendage to another being.

Since all the maids are good and lovable, from whence come the bad wives?

The beggar wears all colors fearing none.

Rags, which are the reproach of poverty, are the beggar's robes, and graceful insignia of his profession, his tenure, his full dress, the suit in which he is expected to show himself in public.

We encourage one another in mediocrity.

In some respects the better a book is, the less it demands from the binding.

A pun is not bound by the laws which limit nicer wit. It is a pistol let off at the ear; not a feather to tickle the intellect.

The English writer, Charles Lamb, said one day: "I hate that man." "But you don't know him." "Of course, I don't," said Lamb. "Do you think I could possibly hate a man I know?"

(The pig) hath a fair sepulchre in the grateful stomach of the judicious epicure - and for such a tomb might be content to die.

Lawyers, I suppose, were children once.

Merit, God knows, is very little rewarded.

Sassafras wood boiled down to a kind of tea, and tempered with an infusion of milk and sugar hath to some a delicacy beyond the China luxury.

A clear fire, a clean hearth, and the rigour of the game.

There are like to be short graces where the devil plays host.

Were I Diogenes, I would not move out of a kilderkin into a hogshead, though the first had had nothing but small beer in it, and the second reeked claret.

Credulity is the man's weakness, but the child's strength.

Wert thou all that I wish thee, great, glorious, and free, First flower of the earth and first gem of the sea.

I conceive disgust at these impertinent and misbecoming familiarities inscribed upon your ordinary tombstone.

The harp that once through Tara's halls The soul of music shed, Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls As if that soul were fled. So sleeps the pride of former days, So glory's thrill is o'er; And hearts that once beat high for praise Now feel that pulse no more.

To be thankful for what we grasp exceeding our proportion is to add hypocrisy to injustice.

Oh, ever thus, from childhood's hour, I 've seen my fondest hopes decay; I never loved a tree or flower But 't was the first to fade away. I never nurs'd a dear gazelle, To glad me with its soft black eye, But when it came to know me well And love me, it was sure to die.

Positively, the best thing a man can have to do, is nothing, and next to that perhaps — good works.

New Year's Day is every man's birthday.

Separate from the pleasure of your company, I don't much care if I never see another mountain in my life.

To sigh, yet feel no pain; To weep, yet scarce know why; To sport an hour with Beauty's chain, Then throw it idly by.

We love to chew the cud of a foregone vision; to collect the scattered rays of a brighter phantasm, or act over again, with firmer nerves, the sadder nocturnal tragedies.

I always arrive late at the office, but I make up for it by leaving early.

The man must have a rare recipe for melancholy, who can be dull in Fleet Street.

I could never hate anyone I knew.

Not if I know myself at all.

Asparagus inspires gentle thoughts.

In the Negro countenance you will often meet with strong traits of benignity. I have felt yearnings of tenderness towards some of these faces.

Books think for me. I can read anything which I call a book.

Oh, breathe not his name! let it sleep in the shade, Where cold and unhonour'd his relics are laid

Shall I ask the brave soldier who fights by my side In the cause of mankind, if our creeds agree?