Charles Lamb Quotes
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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.
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For I hate, yet love thee, so,That, whichever thing I show,The plain truth will seem to beA constrained hyperbole,And the passion to proceedMore from a mistress than a weed.
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Pain is life - the sharper, the more evidence of life.
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Separate from the pleasure of your company, I don't much care if I never see a mountain in my life.
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Thou in such a cloud dost bind us,That our worst foes cannot find us,And ill fortune, that would thwart us,Shoots at rovers, shooting at us;While each man, through thy height'ning steam,Does like a smoking Etna seem.
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The measure of choosing well, is, whether a man likes and finds good in what he has chosen.
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Clap an extinguisher upon your irony if you are unhappily blessed with a vein of it.
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What is reading, but silent conversation.
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I love to lose myself in other men's minds.
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Sunday itself-that unfortunate failure of a holyday as it too often proved, what with my sense of its fugitiveness, and over-care to get the greatest quantity of pleasure out of it …
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The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth and have it found out by accident.
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A poor relation-is the most irrelevant thing in nature.
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Cards are war, in disguise of a sport.
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I could never hate anyone I knew.
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Shakespeare is one of the last books one should like to give up, perhaps the one just before the Dying Service in a large Prayer book.
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The most common error made in matters of appearance is the belief that one should disdain the superficial and let the true beauty of one's soul shine through. If there are places on your body where this is a possibility, you are not attractive - you are leaking.
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Who first invented work, and bound the freeAnd holiday-rejoicing spirit down . . . . . . . . .To that dry drudgery at the desk's dead wood? . . . . . . . . .Sabbath-less Satan!
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I always arrive late at the office, but I make up for it by leaving early.
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Things in books' clothing.
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Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and have her nonsense respected.
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Credulity is the man's weakness, but the child's strength.
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For God's sake (I never was more serious), don't make me ridiculous any more by terming me gentle-hearted in print.
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Far transcend my weak invention.’Tis a simple Christian child,Missionary young and mild,From her store of script’ral knowledge (Bible-taught without a college) Which by reading she could gather, Teaches him to say Our Father To the common Parent, who Colour not respects nor hue. White and Black in him have part, Who looks not to the skin, but heart.
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I have had playmates, I have had companions; In my days of childhood, in my joyful school days - All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.