Top 25 Quotes by Thomas de Quincey of 61 - Page 3

Everlasting farewells! and again, and yet again reverberated everlasting farewells!

Everlasting farewells! and again, and yet again reverberated everlasting farewells!

Farewell, Everlasting

'Confessions of an English Opium Eater' (1822) pt. 3 'The Pains of Opium'

Flowers that are so pathetic in their beauty, frail as the clouds, and in their coloring as gorgeous as the heavens, had through thousands of years been the heritage of children - honored as the jewelry of God.

Thomas de Quincey

Children, Flower, Clouds

Thomas De Quincey (1856). “Confessions of an English Opium-eater, and Selected Essays”

The public is a bad guesser.

Thomas de Quincey

Thomas De Quincey, James Thomas Fields (1854). “De Quincey's Writings: Theological essays and other papers. 1854”, p.53

No progressive knowledge will ever medicine that dread misgiving of a mysterious and pathless power given to words of a certain import.

Thomas de Quincey

Medicine, Mysterious, Progressive

Thomas De Quincey (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Thomas De Quincey (Illustrated)”, p.4128, Delphi Classics

Far better, and more cheerfully, I could dispense with some part of the downright necessaries of life, than with certain circumstances of elegance and propriety in the daily habits of using them.

Thomas de Quincey

Elegance, Habit, Refinement

Thomas De Quincey, James Thomas Fields (1851). “De Quincey's Writings: Life and manners; from The autobiography of an English opium-eater. 1851”, p.14

The mere understanding, however useful and indispensable, is the meanest faculty in the human mind and the most to be distrusted.

Thomas de Quincey

Understanding, Mind, Faculty

Thomas De Quincey, James Thomas Fields (1851). “De Quincey's Writings: Miscellaneous essays. 1851”, p.9

Reserve is the truest expression of respect towards those who are its objects.

Thomas de Quincey

Expression, Objects, Reserves

Under our present enormous accumulation of books, I do affirm that a most miserable distraction of choice must be very generally incident to the times; that the symptoms of it are in fact very prevalent, and that one of the chief symptoms is an enormous 'gluttonism' for books.

Thomas de Quincey

Book, Choices, Facts

Thomas De Quincey (1856). “Letters to a Young Man: And Other Papers”, p.40

Many a man has risen to eminence under the powerful reaction of his mind in fierce counter-agency to the scorn of the unworthy, daily evoked by his personal defects, who with a handsome person would have sunk into the luxury of a careless life under the tranquillizing smiles of continual admiration.

Thomas de Quincey

Powerful, Men, Luxury

Thomas De Quincey, James Thomas Fields (1854). “De Quincey's Writings: Essays on philosophical writers and other men of letters. 1854-60. [v. 14 stereotyped”, p.142

There is a necessity for a regulating discipline of exercise that, whilst evoking the human energies, will not suffer them to be wasted.

Thomas de Quincey

Fitness, Exercise, Discipline

Thomas De Quincey, James Thomas Fields (1854). “De Quincey's Writings: Essays on philosophical writers and other men of letters. 1854-60. [v. 14 stereotyped”, p.50