“I conceive disgust at those impertinent and misbecoming familiarities, inscribed upon your ordinary tombstones. Every dead man must take upon himself to be lecturing me with his odious truism, that "such as he now is, I must shortly be." Not so shortly, friend, perhaps, as thou imaginest. In the meantime I am alive. I move about. I am worth twenty of thee. Know thy betters!”

— Charles Lamb , book Essays of Elia

New Year's Eve.
Essays of Elia (1823)

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Charles Lamb 85

English essayist 1775–1834

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