English essayist and critic (1775-1834)
Take my word for this, reader, and say a fool told it you, if you please, that he who hath not a dram of folly in his mixture, hath pounds of much worse matter in his composition.
CHARLES LAMB
"All Fools' Day", Elia
The going away of friends does not make the remainder more precious. It takes so much from them as there was a common link. A. B. and C. make a party. A. dies. B. not only loses A. but all A.'s part in C. C. loses A.'s part in B., and so the alphabet sickens by subtraction of interchangeables.
CHARLES LAMB
letter to William Wordsworth, Mar. 20, 1822
The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident.
CHARLES LAMB
"Table-Talk and Fragments of Criticism", The Life and Works of Charles Lamb
The vices of some men are magnificent.
CHARLES LAMB
"Table-Talk and Fragments of Criticism", The Life and Works of Charles Lamb
Time partially reconciles us to anything. I gradually became content--doggedly contented, as wild animals in cages.
CHARLES LAMB
"The Superannuated Man", Elia and The last essays of Elia
Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and to have her nonsense respected.
CHARLES LAMB
letter to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Feb. 13, 1797
Trample not on the ruins of a man.
CHARLES LAMB
"Confessions of a Drunkard", The Last Essays of Elia