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Charles Lamb

Charles Lamb Quotes

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Famous Charles Lamb Quotes

“I grow ominously tired of official confinement. Thirty years have I served the Philistines, and my neck is not subdued to the yoke. You don't know how wearisome it is to breathe the air of four pent walls without relief day after day, all the golden hours of the day between ten and four without ease or interposition ... these pestilential clerk-faces always in one's dish. O for a few years between the grave and the desk!”

KnowsYearsFacesGrowsHoursKnow HowFourAirWallTenTiredBreatheGravesGoldenEaseThirtyOfficialsNecksReliefDishesDesksThirty YearsClerksYokeConfinementPhilistinesGolden Hour
Book:The letters of Charles Lamb, with a sketch of his life. The poetical works
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“It is rather an unpleasant fact, that the ugliest and awkwardest of brute animals have the greatest resemblance to man: the monkey and the bear. The monkey is ugly too (so we think) because he is like man--as the bear is awkward, because the cumbrous action of its huge paws seems to be a preposterous imitation of the motions of human hands. Men and apes are the only animals that have hairs on the under eye-lid. Let kings know this.”

ThinkingKnowsMenHumansFactsHandsSeemsEyeActionAnimalHugeHairBearsKingsUglyAwkwardImitationMonkeysBrutesApesResemblancePawsHuman Hands
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Illustrated)
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“I conceive disgust at those impertinent and misbecoming familiarities, inscribed upon your ordinary tombstones. Every dead man must take upon himself to be lecturing me with his odious truism, that "such as he now is, I must shortly be." Not so shortly, friend, perhaps, as thou imaginest. In the meantime I am alive. I move about. I am worth twenty of thee. Know thy betters!”

KnowsMenMovingAliveOrdinaryTwentiesTheeDisgustingFamiliarityDead ManTombstoneTruismI Am AliveLecturing
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Illustrated)
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“Surely it is a matter of joy, that your faith in Jesus has been preserved; the Comforter that should relieve you is not far from you. But as you are a Christian, in the name of that Saviour, who was filled with bitterness and made druken with wormwood, I conjre you to have recourse in frequent prayer to 'his God and your God,' the God of mercies, and father of all comfort. Your poor father is, I hope, almost senseless of the calamity; the unconscious instrument of Divine Providence knows it not, and your mother is in heaven.”

KnowsShouldHas BeensMadeMatterChristianJoyMotherFatherJesusNamesHeavenPrayerPoorDivineComfortMercyInstrumentsFilledUnconsciousBitternessProvidenceCalamitySaviourRecourseComforterDivine ProvidenceFaith In JesusWormwood
Book:The Letters of Charles Lamb: To which are Added Those of His Sister, Mary Lamb. Edited by E.V. Lucas
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“The laws of Pluto's kingdom know small difference between king and cobbler, manager and call-boy; and, if haply your dates of life were conterminant, you are quietly taking your passage, cheek by cheek (O ignoble levelling of Death) with the shade of some recently departed candle-snuffer.”

IfsKnowsLawDifferencesBoysKingsKingdomsManagersShadePassagesCandleCheeksDepartedIgnoblePlutoCobblersSmall Differences
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Illustrated)
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“I am accounted by some people as a good man. How cheap that character is acquired! Pay your debts, don't borrow money, nor twist your kitten's neck off, nor disturb a congregation, etc., your business is done. I know things of myself, which would make every friend I have fly me as a plague patient.”

PeopleKnowsMenDoneCharacterBusinessPayPatientDebtNecksEtcGood ManTwistsPlagueKittenCongregation
Book:Little essays, sketches and characters, by C. Lamb, selected from his letters by P. Fitzgerald
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“The pilasters reaching down were adorned with a glistering substance (I know not what) under glass (as it seemed), resembling - a homely fancy, but I judged it to be sugar-candy; yet to my raised imagination, divested of its homelier qualities, it appeared a glorified candy.”

KnowsImaginationQualityRaisedGlassesSubstanceFancyReachingJudgedSugarCandyHomely
Book:Elia: essays which have appeared under that signature in the London magazine
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