Charles Lamb: Quotes about life

Charles Lamb was English essayist. Explore interesting quotes on life.

Charles Lamb: 170 quotes9 likes

“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?”

“Nursed amid her [London's] noise, her crowds, her beloved smoke, what have I been doing all my life, if I have not lent out my heart with usury to such scenes?”

Letter to Thomas Manning (February 15, 1802)

“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)

“Separate from the pleasure of your company, I don't much care if I never see a mountain in my life.”

Letter to Wordsworth (January 30, 1801)

“I have been trying all my life to like Scotchmen, and am obliged to desist from the experiment in despair.”

Charles Lamb book Essays of Elia

Imperfect Sympathies.
Essays of Elia (1823)

“Not many sounds in life, and I include all urban and rural sounds, exceed in interest a knock at the door.”

Charles Lamb book Essays of Elia

Valentine's Day.
Essays of Elia (1823)

“The good things of life are not to be had singly, but come to us with a mixture.”

Charles Lamb Last Essays of Elia

Popular Fallacies: XIII, That You Must Love Me and Love My Dog.
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)