Quotes from Charles Lamb

Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother, Why wert thou not born in my father's dwelling?

Rather was it not a series of seven uneasy days, spent in restless pursuit of pleasure, and a wearisome anxiety to find out how to make the most of them? Where was the quiet, where the promised rest?

I remember an hypothesis argued upon by the young students, when I was at St. Omer's, and maintained with much learning and pleasantry on both sides, 'Whether supposing that the flavour of a big who obtained his death by whipping (per flagellationem extremem) superadded a pleasure upon the palate of a man more intense than any possible suffering we can conceive in the animal, is man justified in using that method of putting an animal to death?' I forget the decision.

Dream not...of having tasted all the grandeur & wildness of Fancy, till you have gone mad.

Sun, and sky, and breeze, and solitary walks, and summer holidays, and the greenness of fields, and the delicious juices of meats and fishes, and society, and the cheerful glass, and candle-light, and fire-side conversations, and innocent vanities, and irony itself-- do these things go out with life? Can a ghost laugh, or shake his gaunt sides, when you are pleasant with him?

How sickness enlarges the dimensions of a man's self to himself!...

Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and to have her nonsense respected.

I'd like to grow very old as slowly as possible.

Oh, the pleasure of eating my dinner alone!

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!

No work is worse than overwork; the mind preys on itself,--the most unwholesome of food.

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

I have done all that I came into this world to do. I have worked task work, and have the rest of the day to myself.

Can we ring the bells backward? Can we unlearn the arts that pretend to civilize, and then burn the world? There is a march of science; but who shall beat the drums for its retreat?

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

She unbent her mind afterwards - over a book.

Some people have a knack of putting upon you gifts of no real value, to engage you to substantial gratitude. We thank them for nothing.

The most mortifying infirmity in human nature ... is perhaps cowardice.

Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and have her nonsense respected.

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

We do not go to the theatre like our ancestors, to escape from the pressure of reality, so much as to confirm our experience of it.

The beggar wears all colors fearing none.

Asparagus inspires gentle thoughts.

Brandy and water spoils two good things.