Thomas De Quincey Quotes

[...] it is most absurdly said, in popular language, of any man, that he is disguised in liquor: for, on the contrary, most men are disguised by sobriety; and it is when they are drinking [...] that men [...] display themselves in their true complexion of character; which surely is not disguising themselves.

The world in general, gentlemen, are very bloody-minded; and all they want in a murder is a copious effusion of blood; gaudy display in this point is enough for them.

For my own part, without breach of truth or modesty, I may affirm that my life has been, on the whole, the life of a philosopher: from my birth I was made an intellectual creature, and intellectual in the highest sense my pursuits and pleasures have been, even from my schoolboy days.

Nevertheless, I have a very reprehensible way of heating at times in the midst of my own misery: and, unless when I am checked by some powerful feelings, I am afraid I shall be guilty of this indecent practice even in these annals of suffering or enjoyment

Es del todo evidente que, a menos que se consiga hacer más lento el ritmo colosal a que avanzos (y no cabe esperarlo) o bien -lo cual, por fortuna, es más probable- que se le opongan fuerzas contrarias de magnitud equivalente, en el sentido de la religión o la filosofía profunda, con irradiación centrífuga opuesta a esta religiosa tormenta centrípeta que nos arrastra al vórtice de lo meramente humano, lo natural es que este tumulto tan caótico, librado a sí mismo, tienda de por sí al mal, en algunos espíritus a la locura y en otros a una reactivación del letargo carnal.

Hobbes, but why, or on what principle, I never could understand, was not murdered. This was a capital oversight of the professional men in the seventeenth century; because in every light he was a fine subject for murder, except, indeed, that he was lean and skinny;

I question whether any Turk, of all that have entered the Paradise of Opium-eaters, can have had half the pleasure I had. But, indeed, I hounour the barbarians too much by supposing them capable of any pleasures approaching to the intellectual ones of an Englishman.

I have often thought that if I were compelled to forego England, and to live in China, and among Chinese manners and modes of life and scenery, I should go mad.

And although it is true that the calamities of my noviciate in London had struck root so deeply in my bodily constitution, that afterwards they shot up and flourished afresh, and grew into a noxious umbrage that has overshadowed and darkened my latter years, yet these second assaults of suffering were met with a fortitude more confirmed, with the resources of a maturer intellect, and with alleviations from sympathising affection — how deep and tender!

Let there be a patron like Maecenus, Flaccus, and your lands will give you a poet like Virgil

This I feared was beyond the strength of any one man: however the groom was a man -

Of Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear
The weight of mightiest monarchies;

and had a back as spacious as Salisbury plain.

Every step of my progress was bringing me nearer to the Heath: and it naturally occurred to me that I and the accursed murderer, if he were that night abroad, might at every instant be unconsciously approaching each other through the darkness:

Opium! dread agent of unimaginable pleasure and pain! I had heard of it as I had of manna or of ambrosia, but no further. How unmeaning a sound was it at that time: what solemn chords does it now strike upon my heart! What heart-quaking vibrations of sad and happy remembrances!

The respectable London druggists, in widely remote quarters of London, from whom I happened lately to be purchasing small quantities of opium, assured me, that the number of amateur opium-eaters (as I may term them) was, at this time, immense; and that the difficulty of distinguishing these persons, to whom habit had rendered opium necessary, from such as were purchasing it with a view to suicide, occasioned them daily trouble and disputes.

Yet some feelings, though not deeper or more passionate, are more tender than others: and often, when I walk at this time in Oxford Street by dreamy lamp-light, and hear those airs played on a barrel-organ which years ago solaced me and my dear companion (as I must always call her) I shed tears,