“Antiquity! thou wondrous charm, what art thou? that being nothing art everything? When thou wert, thou wert not antiquity - then thou wert nothing, but hadst a remoter antiquity, as thou calledst it, to look back to with blind veneration; thou thyself being to thyself flat, jejune, modern! What mystery lurks in this retroversion? or what half Januses are we, that cannot look forward with the same idolatry with which we for ever revert! The mighty future is as nothing, being everything! the past is everything, being nothing!”
Quote by Charles Lamb
“Cultivate simplicity or rather should I say banish elaborateness, for simplicity springs spontaneous from the heart.”
Source: Talfourd, T. N. Life and letters
“A poor relation—is the most irrelevant thing in nature.”
“The cheerful Sabbath bells, wherever heard, Strike pleasant on the sense, most like the voice Of one, who from the far-off hills proclaims Tidings of good to Zion.”
Source: The Poetical Works of Charles Lamb
“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.”
Source: Essays of Elia
“How sickness enlarges the dimension of a man’s self to himself!”
“Civilization had too many rules for me, so I did my best to rewrite them.”
“The connection between authors, printers, and booksellers must be kept up.”
Source: London Journal, 1762-1763, as First Published in 1950 from the Original Manuscript
“Dr Johnson said, the inscription should have been in Latin, as every thing intended to be universal and permanent, should be.”
Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Including a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides: In Five Volumes
“What an insignificant life is this which I am now leading!”
Source: James Boswell: As His Contemporaries Saw Him
“For my own part I think no innocent species of wit or pleasantry should be suppressed: and that a good pun may be admitted among the smaller excellencies of lively conversation.”
Source: The life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: comprehending an account of his studies and numerous works, in chronological order; a series of his epistolatory correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons; and various original pieces of his composition, never before published: the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great-Britain, for near half a century during which he flourished
