A pun is not bound by the laws which limit nicer wit. It is a pistol let off at the ear; not a feather to tickle the intellect.
Charles Lamb
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Charles Lamb quotes
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.
A child's a plaything for an hour.
A laugh is worth a hundred groans in any market.
A poor relation is the most irrelevant thing in nature, a piece of impertinent correspondence, an odious approximation, a haunting conscience, a preposterous shadow, lengthening in the noon-tide of our prosperity. He is known by his knock.
A pun is not bound by the laws which limit nicer wit. It is a pistol let off at the ear; not a feather to tickle the intellect.
Asparagus inspires gentle thoughts.
Boys are capital fellows in their own way, among their mates; but they are unwholesome companions for grown people.
Cards are war, in disguise of a sport.
Credulity is the man's weakness, but the child's strength.
Don't introduce me to that man! I want to go on hating him, and I can't hate a man whom I know.
For God's sake (I never was more serious) don't make me ridiculous any more by terming me gentle-hearted in print... substitute drunken dog, ragged head, seld-shaven, odd-eyed, stuttering, or any other epithet which truly and properly belongs to the gentleman in question.
He has left off reading altogether, to the great improvement of his originality.
He is no lawyer who cannot take two sides.
I always arrive late at the office, but I make up for it by leaving early.
I am determined that my children shall be brought up in their father's religion, if they can find out what it is.
I love to lose myself in other men's minds.
I'd like to grow very old as slowly as possible.
Lawyers, I suppose, were children once.
Let us live for the beauty of our own reality.
Man is a gaming animal. He must always be trying to get the better in something or other.
My motto is: Contented with little, yet wishing for more.
Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever puts one down without the feeling of disappointment.
Nothing puzzles me more than the time and space; and yet nothing troubles me less.
Pain is life - the sharper, the more evidence of life.
Presents, I often say, endear absents.
Riches are chiefly good because they give us time.
Separate from the pleasure of your company, I don't much care if I never see another mountain in my life.
She unbent her mind afterwards - over a book.
Some people have a knack of putting upon you gifts of no real value, to engage you to substantial gratitude. We thank them for nothing.
The beggar wears all colors fearing none.
The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth and have it found out by accident.
The man must have a rare recipe for melancholy, who can be dull in Fleet Street.
The most common error made in matters of appearance is the belief that one should disdain the superficial and let the true beauty of one's soul shine through. If there are places on your body where this is a possibility, you are not attractive - you are leaking.
The red-letter days, now become, to all intents and purposes, dead-letter days.
Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and have her nonsense respected.
To be sick is to enjoy monarchical prerogatives.
We gain nothing by being with such as ourselves. We encourage one another in mediocrity. I am always longing to be with men more excellent than myself.
Were I Diogenes, I would not move out of a kilderkin into a hogshead, though the first had had nothing but small beer in it, and the second reeked claret.
What is reading, but silent conversation.
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