CHARLES LAMB QUOTES IV

English essayist and critic (1775-1834)

I can scarce bring myself to believe, that I am admitted to a familiar correspondence, and all the license of friendship, with a man who writes blank verse like Milton.

CHARLES LAMB

letter to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Feb. 13, 1797

Tags: John Milton


Dehortations from the use of strong liquors have been the favourite topic of sober declaimers in all ages, and have been received with abundance of applause by water-drinking critics. But with the patient himself, the man that is to be cured, unfortunately their sound has seldom prevailed.

CHARLES LAMB

"Confessions of a Drunkard", The Last Essays of Elia

Tags: alcoholism


There is a pleasure in affecting affectation.

CHARLES LAMB

"Table Talk", Works: Essays and Sketches


I know that a sweet child is the sweetest thing in nature, not even excepting the delicate creatures which bear them.

CHARLES LAMB

"A Bachelor's Complaint", Elia and the Last Essays of Elia

Tags: children


How sickness enlarges the dimensions of a man's self to himself.

CHARLES LAMB

"The Convalescent", Last Essays of Elia

Tags: illness


Your borrowers of books--those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators of odd volumes.

CHARLES LAMB

"The Two Races of Men", Essays of Elia

Tags: books


A pun is a pistol let off at the ear; not a feather to tickle the intellect.

CHARLES LAMB

"Popular Fallacies", Last Essays of Elia