Charles Lamb

For thy sake, tobacco, I / Would do anything but die.

You may derive thoughts from others; your way ol thinking, the mould in which your thoughts are cast, must be your own.

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.

He [the schoolmaster] is awkward, and out of place, in the society of his equals. He comes like Gulliver from among his little people, and he cannot fit the stature of his understanding to yours.

All people have their blind side—their superstitions.

The trumpet does not more stun you by its loudness, than a whisper teases you by its provoking inaudibility.

How convalescence shrinks a man back to his pristine stature! where is now the space, which he occupied so lately, in his own, in the family’s eye?

I am Retired Leisure. I am to be met with in trim gardens. I am already come to be known by my vacant face and careless gesture, perambulating at no fixed pace nor with any settled purpose. I walk about; not to and from.

A poor relation—is the most irrelevant thing in nature,—a piece of impertinent correspondency,—an odious approximation,—a haunting conscience,—a preposterous shadow, lengthening in the noontide of our prosperity.

A presentation copy, reader,—if haply you are yet innocent of such favours—is a copy of a book which does not sell, sent you by the author.

Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment.

Nothing is to me 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 of her.

Anything awful makes me laugh. I misbehaved once at a funeral.

How I like to be liked, and what I do to be liked!

The teller of a mirthful tale has latitude allowed him. We are content with less than absolute truth.

The good things of life are not to he had singly, hut come to us with a mixture; like a schoolboy’s holiday, with a task affixed to the tail of it.

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.

Cards are war, in disguise of a sport.

The drinking man is never less himself than during his sober intervals.

Man is a gaming animal. He must be always trying to get the better in something or other.

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

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

I am determined that my children shall be brought up in their father's religion, if they can find out what it is.

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

Boys are capital fellows in their own way, among their mates but they are unwholesome companions for grown people.

Nothing to me is more distasteful than that entire complacency and satisfaction which beam in the countenances of a newly married couple.

My motto is: Contented with little, yet wishing for more.

Lawers, I suppose, were children once.

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

He is no lawyer who cannot take two sides.

Not many sounds in life, and I include all urban and all rural sounds, exceed in interest a knock at the door.

The most mortifying infirmity in human nature, to feel in ourselves, or to contemplate in another, is, perhaps, cowardice.

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

You look wise. Pray correct that error.

’TIS THE PRIVILEGE OF FRIENDSHIP TO TALK NONSENSE, AND TO HAVE HER NONSENSE RESPECTED.

When my sonnet was rejected, I exclaimed,