Charles Lamb Quotes - Page 8

Oh, the pleasure of eating my dinner alone!

Whose wit in the combat, as gentle as bright, Ne'er carried a heart-stain away on its blade.

Science has succeeded to poetry, no less in the little walks of children than with men. Is there no possibility of averting this sore evil?

In every thing that relates to science, I am a whole Encyclopaedia behind the rest of the world.

This very night I am going to leave off tobacco! Surely there must be some other world in which this unconquerable purpose shall be realised.

The cheerful Sabbath bells, wherever heard, Strike pleasant on the sense, most like the voice Of one, who from the far-off hills proclaims Tidings of good to Zion.

Who has not felt how sadly sweet The dream of home, the dream of home, Steals o'er the heart, too soon to fleet, When far o'er sea or land we roam?

Gluttony and surfeiting are no proper occasions for thanksgiving.

Thus, when the lamp that lighted The traveller at first goes out, He feels awhile benighted, And looks around in fear and doubt. But soon, the prospect clearing, By cloudless starlight on he treads, And thinks no lamp so cheering As that light which Heaven sheds.

I like you and your book, ingenious Hone! In whose capacious all-embracing leaves The very marrow of tradition 's shown; And all that history, much that fiction weaves.

A poor relation—is the most irrelevant thing in nature.

Antiquity! thou wondrous charm, what art thou? that being nothing art everything? When thou wert, thou wert not antiquity - then thou wert nothing, but hadst a remoter antiquity, as thou calledst it, to look back to with blind veneration; thou thyself being to thyself flat, jejune, modern! What mystery lurks in this retroversion? or what half Januses are we, that cannot look forward with the same idolatry with which we for ever revert! The mighty future is as nothing, being everything! the past is everything, being nothing!

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

There was a little man, and he had a little soul; And he said, Little Soul, let us try, try, try!

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

Take all the pleasures of all the spheres, And multiply each through endless years,- One minute of heaven is worth them all.

A Persian's heaven is eas'ly made: 'T is but black eyes and lemonade.

My only books Were woman's looks,- And folly 's all they 've taught me.

Books which are no books.

The pilasters reaching down were adorned with a glistering substance (I know not what) under glass (as it seemed), resembling - a homely fancy, but I judged it to be sugar-candy; yet to my raised imagination, divested of its homelier qualities, it appeared a glorified candy.

Not if I know myself at all.

There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet.

As half in shade and half in sun This world along its path advances, May that side the sun 's upon Be all that e'er shall meet thy glances!

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

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