„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, Last Essays of Elia
“The superannuated man”
Last Essays of Elia (1833)
Frases Charles Lamb
„And half had staggered that stout Stagirite.“
Written at Cambridge; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
„This very night I am going to leave off Tobacco! Surely there must be some other world in which this unconquerable purpose shall be realized.“
Letter to Thomas Manning (December 26, 1815)<!-- published or quoted where? -->
„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.“
— Charles Lamb, Last Essays of Elia
“The superannuated man”
Last Essays of Elia (1833)
„In heav'n, the saint nor pity feels, nor care,
For those thus sentenced - pity might disturb
The delicate sense and most divine repose
Of spiritus angelical
Blessed be God,
The measure of his judgments is not fixed
By man's erroneous standard. He discerns
No such inordinate difference and vast
Betwixt the sinner and the saint, to doom
Such disproportion'd fates.
Compared with him,
No man on earth is holy called: they best
Stand in his sight approved, who at his feet
Their little crowns of virtue cast, and yield,
To him of his own works the praise, his due.“
Composed at midnight, as quoted in The Poetical Works of Charles Lamb, p. 72.
„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.“
My First Play; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
„When my sonnet was rejected, I exclaimed, 'Damn the age; I will write for Antiquity!“
Letter to Proctor (January 22, 1829), in Oxford Dictionary of Quotations by Subject (2000), p. 526
„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, libro Essays of Elia
The Two Races of Men.
Essays of Elia (1823)
„I like you and your book, ingenious Hone!
In whose capacious all-embracing leaves
The very marrow of tradition 's shown;
And all that history, much that fiction weaves.“
To the Editor of the Every-Day Book; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
„Credulity is the man's weakness, but the child's strength.“
— Charles Lamb, libro Essays of Elia
Witches, and Other Night Fears.
Essays of Elia (1823)
„A clear fire, a clean hearth, and the rigor of the game.“
— Charles Lamb, libro Essays of Elia
Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Essays of Elia (1823)
„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 …“
— Charles Lamb, Last Essays of Elia
“The superannuated man”
Last Essays of Elia (1833)
„Things in books' clothing.“
— Charles Lamb, Last Essays of Elia
Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading.
Last Essays of Elia (1833)
„If peradventure, Reader, it has been thy lot to waste the golden years of thy life—thy shining youth—in the irksome confinement of an office; to have thy prison days prolonged through middle age down to decrepitude and silver hairs, without hope of release or respite; to have lived to forget that there are such things as holidays, or to remember them but as the prerogatives of childhood; then, and then only, will you be able to appreciate my deliverance.“
— Charles Lamb, Last Essays of Elia
“The superannuated man”
Last Essays of Elia (1833)
„MY dearest friend — White or some of my friends or the public papers by this time may have informed you of the terrible calamities that have fallen on our family. I will only give you the outlines. My poor dear dearest sister in a fit of insanity has been the death of her own mother. I was at hand only time enough to snatch the knife out of her grasp. She is at present in a mad house, from whence I fear she must be moved to an hospital. God has preserved to me my senses, — I eat and drink and sleep, and have my judgment I believe very sound. My poor father was slightly wounded, and I am left to take care of him and my aunt. Mr. Norris of the Bluecoat school has been very very kind to us, and we have no other friend, but thank God I am very calm and composed, and able to do the best that remains to do. Write, —as religious a letter as possible— but no mention of what is gone and done with. —With me “the former things are passed away,” and I have something more to do that [than] to feel. God almighty have us all in his keeping.“
Lamb in September 27, 1796. In his letter to Coleridge; after the family tragedy. As quoted in Works of Charles and Mary Lamb. Letters (1905).
„Books think for me.“
— Charles Lamb, Last Essays of Elia
Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading.
Last Essays of Elia (1833)
„I have something more to do than to feel.“
Letter to Coleridge (September 27, 1796), after the death of Lamb's mother.
„Presents, I often say, endear absents.“
— Charles Lamb, libro Essays of Elia
A Dissertation upon Roast Pig; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Essays of Elia (1823)
