Charles Lamb Quotes

I could never hate anyone I knew. — Charles Lamb

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

No eye to watch, and no tongue to wound us, All earth forgot, and all heaven around us. — Charles Lamb

Shall I ask the brave soldier who fights by my side In the cause of mankind, if our creeds agree? — Charles Lamb

If thou would'st have me sing and play As once I play'd and sung, First take this time-worn lute away, And bring one freshly strung. — Charles Lamb

When true hearts lie wither'd And fond ones are flown, Oh, who would inhabit This bleak world alone? — Charles Lamb

I even think that, sentimentally, I am disposed to harmony. But organically I am incapable of a tune. — Charles Lamb

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? — Charles Lamb

You do not play then at whist, sir? Alas, what a sad old age you are preparing for yourself! — Charles Lamb

The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow and the men who lend. — Charles Lamb

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

Time partially reconciles us to anything. — Charles Lamb

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

I conceive disgust at these impertinent and misbecoming familiarities inscribed upon your ordinary tombstone. — Charles Lamb

All people have their blind side-their superstitions. — Charles Lamb

The beggar wears all colors fearing none. — Charles Lamb

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

Lawyers, I suppose, were children once. — Charles Lamb

To be thankful for what we grasp exceeding our proportion is to add hypocrisy to injustice. — Charles Lamb

Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother, Why wert thou not born in my father's dwelling? — Charles Lamb

Sassafras wood boiled down to a kind of tea, and tempered with an infusion of milk and sugar hath to some a delicacy beyond the China luxury. — Charles Lamb

You look wise, pray correct that error. — Charles Lamb

Beholding heaven, and feeling hell. — Charles Lamb

No woman dresses below herself from mere caprice. — Charles Lamb

What have I gained by health? Intolerable dullness. What by mode meals? A total blank. — Charles Lamb

We encourage one another in mediocrity. — Charles Lamb

I am, in plainer words, a bundle of prejudices - made up of likings and dislikings. — Charles Lamb

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

I mean your borrowers of books - those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators of odd volumes. — Charles Lamb

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? — Charles Lamb

I have something more to do than to feel. — Charles Lamb

A clear fire, a clean hearth, and the rigour of the game. — Charles Lamb

We grow gray in our spirit long before we grow gray in our hair. — Charles Lamb

Summer, as my friend Coleridge waggishly writes, has set in with its usual severity. — Charles Lamb

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

Gluttony and surfeiting are no proper occasions for thanksgiving. — Charles Lamb

I ask and wish not to appear
More beauteous, rich or gay:
Lord, make me wiser every year,
And better every day. — Charles Lamb

Oh stay! oh stay! Joy so seldom weaves a chain Like this to-night, that oh 't is pain To break its links so soon. — Charles Lamb

Trample not on the ruins of a man. — Charles Lamb

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

Half as sober as a judge. — Charles Lamb

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

Man is a gaming animal. — Charles Lamb

In the Negro countenance you will often meet with strong traits of benignity. I have felt yearnings of tenderness towards some of these faces. — Charles Lamb

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

Since all the maids are good and lovable, from whence come the bad wives? — Charles Lamb

Clap an extinguisher upon your irony if you are unhappily blessed with a vein of it. — Charles Lamb

Positively, the best thing a man can have to do, is nothing, and next to that perhaps - good works. — Charles Lamb

How sickness enlarges the dimension of a man's self to himself! — Charles Lamb

And when once the young heart of a maiden is stolen, The maiden herself will steal after it soon. — Charles Lamb

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

There is a pleasure in affecting affectation. — Charles Lamb

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. — Charles Lamb

Damn the age. I'll write for antiquity. — Charles Lamb

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. — Charles Lamb

Just as I am, without one plea But that Thy blood was shed for me, And that thou bidd'st me come to Thee, O Lamb of God, I come! — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

The truant Fancy was a wanderer ever. — Charles Lamb

An album is a garden, not for show
Planted, but use; where wholesome herbs should grow. — Charles Lamb

The world meets nobody half way. — Charles Lamb

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

Tis unpleasant to meet a beggar. It is painful to deny him; and, if you relieve him, it is so much out of your pocket. — Charles Lamb

A sweet child is the sweetest thing in nature. — Charles Lamb

It is good to love the unknown. — Charles Lamb

The measure of choosing well, is, whether a man likes and finds good in what he has chosen. — Charles Lamb

English physicians kill you, the French let you die. — Charles Lamb

Man, while he loves, is never quite depraved. — Charles Lamb

He who hath not a dram of folly in his mixture hath pounds of much worse matter in his composition. — Charles Lamb

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! — Charles Lamb

Presents, I often say, endear absents. — Charles Lamb

Books think for me. I can read anything which I call a book. — Charles Lamb

Reader, if you are gifted with nerves like mine, aspire to any character but that of a wit. — Charles Lamb

A child's nature is too serious a thing to admit of its being regarded as a mere appendage to another being. — Charles Lamb

He is no lawyer who cannot take two sides. — Charles Lamb

I have been trying all my life to like Scotchmen, and am obliged to desist from the experiment in despair. — Charles Lamb

If dirt were trumps, what hands you would hold! — Charles Lamb

Who first invented work, and bound the free And holiday-rejoicing spirit down ... To that dry drudgery at the desk's dead wood? ... Sabbathless Satan! — Charles Lamb

New Year's Day is every man's birthday. — Charles Lamb

Merit, God knows, is very little rewarded. — Charles Lamb

For thy sake, tobacco, I would do anything but die. — Charles Lamb

His voice was the most obnoxious squeak I ever was tormented with. — Charles Lamb

The vices of some men are magnificent. — Charles Lamb

Gone before To that unknown and silent shore. — Charles Lamb

My wife is one of the best wimin on this Continent, altho' she isn't always gentle as a lamb with mint sauce. — Charles Farrar Browne

And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls, Shall long keep his memory green in our souls. — Charles Lamb

There is more reason to say grace before beginning a book than there is to say it before beginning to dine. — Charles Lamb

Riddle of destiny, who can show What thy short visit meant, or know What thy errand here below? — Charles Lamb

By myself walking, To myself talking. — Charles Lamb

Dream not ... of having tasted all the grandeur & wildness of Fancy, till you have gone mad. — Charles Lamb

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

Oh, breathe not his name! let it sleep in the shade, Where cold and unhonour'd his relics are laid — Charles Lamb

My theory is to enjoy life, but the practice is against it. — Charles Lamb

Not if I know myself at all. — Charles Lamb

Farewell, farewell to thee, Araby's daughter! Thus warbled a Peri beneath the dark sea. — Charles Lamb

I am in love with the green earth. — Charles Lamb

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

I allow no hot-beds in the gardens of Parnassus. — Charles Lamb

For with G. D., to be absent from the body is sometimes (not to speak profanely) to be present with the Lord. — Charles Lamb

We all have some taste or other, of too ancient a date to admit of our remembering it was an acquired one. — Charles Lamb

I never knew an enemy to puns who was not an ill-natured man. — Charles Lamb

I cannot sit and think; books think for me. — Charles Lamb