If thou would'st have me sing and play As once I play'd and sung, First take this time-worn lute away, And bring one freshly strung.
Charles LambThe most mortifying infirmity in human nature, to feel in ourselves, or to contemplate in another, is perhaps cowardice.
Charles LambThe human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow and the men who lend.
Charles LambWe 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.
Charles LambI own that I am disposed to say grace upon twenty other occasions in the course of the day besides my dinner. I want a form for setting out upon a pleasant walk, for a moonlight ramble, for a friendly meeting, or a solved problem. Why have we none for books, these spiritual repasts-a grace before Milton-a grace before Shakespeare-a devotional exercise proper to be said before reading The Fairie Queene?
Charles Lamb