Frases de Charles Lamb

„En el cielo, el santo ni la piedad sienten, ni se preocupan, por los condenados, la piedad puede perturbar el sentido delicado y el reposo más divino del espíritu angelical. Bendito sea Dios. No discierne tal diferencia desmesurada y el inmenso Betwixt el pecador y el santo, para condenar tales destinos desproporcionados. Comparado con él, ningún hombre en la tierra es llamado santo: mejor se ponen de pie ante su vista aprobados, quienes a sus pies arrojan sus pequeñas coronas de virtud, y ceden, a él de sus propias obras la alabanza, lo que le corresponde.“

—  Charles Lamb

„¡Miren hacia arriba, débiles! miren hacia arriba y confien en que Él, quien pone este marco mortal en polvo, aún tiene al Espíritu inmortal bajo su custodia. En la vista de Jesús no están muertos, sino durmiendo.“

—  Charles Lamb

„«Me gusta extraviarme a mí mismo a través de otras mentes. Cuando no estoy pensando, estoy leyendo. Soy incapaz de sentarme y ponerme a pensar. Los libros piensan por mí».“

—  Charles Lamb

Sin fuentes

„Tenía una madre, pero murió y me abandonó. Falleció prematuramente en un día horroroso. Y ya todos se han ido, los viejos rostros familiares“

—  Charles Lamb

The Old Familiar Faces

„Para tener pensamientos nobles no es necesario haber nacido nobles.“

—  Charles Lamb

Sin fuentes

„La prisa es del diablo; la paciencia es de Dios.“

—  Charles Lamb

Sin fuentes

„Generalmente se lee para decir que se ha leído.“

—  Charles Lamb

Sin fuentes

„Sun, and sky, and breeze, and solitary walks, and summer holidays, and the greenness of fields, and the delicious juices of meats and fishes, and society, and the cheerful glass, and candle-light, and fire-side conversations, and innocent vanities, and irony itself-- do these things go out with life? Can a ghost laugh, or shake his gaunt sides, when you are pleasant with him?“

—  Charles Lamb

„Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and to have her nonsense respected.“

—  Charles Lamb

Fuente: The Life, Letters and Writings of Charles Lamb

„New Year's Day is every man's birthday.“

—  Charles Lamb

„I always arrive late at the office, but I make up for it by leaving early.“

—  Charles Lamb

„Of all sound of all bells… most solemn and touching is the peal which rings out the Old Year.“

—  Charles Lamb

„Lawyers, I suppose, were children once.“

—  Charles Lamb, libro Essays of Elia

The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple.
Essays of Elia (1823)

„I love to lose myself in other men's minds.“

—  Charles Lamb, Last Essays of Elia

Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading.
Last Essays of Elia (1833)

„The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident.“

—  Charles Lamb

Quoted in "Table Talk" http://books.google.com/books?id=LIxUAAAAcAAJ&q=%22greatest+pleasure+I+know+is+to+do+a+good+action+by+stealth+and+to+have+it+found+out+by+accident%22&pg=PA14#v=onepage in The Athenaeum magazine (4 January 1834).

„A book reads the better which is our own, and has been so long known to us, that we know the topography of its blots, and dog's ears, and can trace the dirt in it to having read it at tea with buttered muffins.“

—  Charles Lamb, libro Essays of Elia

Fuente: Essays of Elia

„A poor relation—is the most irrelevant thing in nature.“

—  Charles Lamb, Last Essays of Elia

Poor Relations.
Last Essays of Elia (1833)

„Each day used to be individually felt by me in its reference to the foreign post days; in its distance from, or propinquity to, the next Sunday. I had my Wednesday feelings, my Saturday nights’ sensations.“

—  Charles Lamb, Last Essays of Elia

“The superannuated man”
Last Essays of Elia (1833)

„I have indeed lived nominally fifty years, but deduct out of them the hours which I have lived to other people, and not to myself, and you will find me still a young fellow. For that is the only true time, which a man can properly call his own, that which he has all to himself; the rest, though in some sense he may be said to live it, is other people’s time, not his. The remnant of my poor days, long or short, is at least multiplied for me three-fold. My ten next years, if I stretch so far, will be as long as any preceding thirty.“

—  Charles Lamb, Last Essays of Elia

“The superannuated man”
Last Essays of Elia (1833)