Charles Lamb Quotes

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.

"[Re: Valentine's Day cards] On these little visual interpretations, no emblem is so common as the heart, — that little three-cornered exponent of all our hopes and fears, — the bestuck and bleeding heart ; it is twisted and tortured into more allegories and affectations than an opera hat. What authority we have in history or mythology for placing the head-quarters and metropolis of God Cupid in this anatomical seat rather than in any other, is not very clear ; but we have got it, and it will serve as well as any other. Else we might easily imagine, upon some other system which might have prevailed for any thing which our pathology knows to the contrary, a lover addressing his mistress, in perfect simplicity of feeling, " Madam, my liver and fortune are entirely at your disposal," or putting a delicate question, "Amanda, have you a midriff' to bestow?" But custom has settled these things, and awarded the seat of sentiment to the aforesaid triangle, while its less fortunate neighbours wait at animal and anatomical distance."

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

Your borrowers of books—those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators of odd volumes.

bade her to doubt the stars were fire, and to doubt that the sun did move, to doubt truth to be a liar, but never to doubt that he loved;

The good things of life are not to be had singly, but come to us with a mixture.

Not if I know myself at all.

I have something more to do than to feel.

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

From a poor man, poor in Time, I was suddenly lifted up into a vast revenue; I could see no end of my possessions; I wanted some steward, or judicious bailiff, to manage my estates in Time for me.

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

I love to lose myself in other men's minds.... Books think for me.

Put away from you this unfounded grief; only let it be a lesson to you to be as kind as possible to those you love; and remember, when they are gone from you, you will never think you had been kind enough.

[Of Coleridge] His face when he repeats his verses hath its ancient glory, an Archangel a little damaged.

A man can never have too much Time to himself, nor too little to do. Had I a little son, I would christen him Nothing-To-Do; he should do nothing. Man, I verily believe, is out of his element as long as he is operative. I am altogether for the life contemplative.