Quotes from book
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

Thomas De Quincey

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater is an autobiographical account written by Thomas De Quincey, about his laudanum addiction and its effect on his life. The Confessions was "the first major work De Quincey published and the one which won him fame almost overnight..."First published anonymously in September and October 1821 in the London Magazine, the Confessions was released in book form in 1822, and again in 1856, in an edition revised by De Quincey.

Thomas De Quincey photo

“Thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh just, subtle, and mighty opium!”

Thomas De Quincey book Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

Pt. II.
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822-1856)

Thomas De Quincey photo

“The burden of the incommunicable.”

Thomas De Quincey book Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

Pt. I.
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822-1856)

Thomas De Quincey photo

“Cows are amongst the gentlest of breathing creatures; none show more passionate tenderness to their young when deprived of them; and, in short, I am not ashamed to profess a deep love for these quiet creatures.”

Thomas De Quincey book Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

Pt. I.
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822-1856)

Thomas De Quincey photo

“In many walks of life, a conscience is a more expensive encumbrance than a wife or a carriage.”

Thomas De Quincey book Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822-1856)

Thomas De Quincey photo

“Call for the grandest of all earthly spectacles, what is that? It is the sun going to his rest. Call for the grandest of all human sentiments, what is that? It is that man should forget his anger before he lies down to sleep.”

Thomas De Quincey book Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

Pt. I.
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822-1856)

Thomas De Quincey photo

“Tea, though ridiculed by those who are naturally coarse in their nervous sensibilities … will always be the favourite beverage of the intellectual.”

Thomas De Quincey book Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822-1856)

Thomas De Quincey photo

“It was a Sunday afternoon, wet and cheerless; and a duller spectacle this earth of ours has not to show than a rainy Sunday in London.”

Thomas De Quincey book Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

Pt. II, Recalling the day in 1804 when he first took opium.
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822-1856)

Thomas De Quincey photo

“Flowers … that are so pathetic in their beauty, frail as the clouds, and in their colouring as gorgeous as the heavens, had through thousands of years been the heritage of children—honoured as the jewellery of God only by them—when suddenly the voice of Christianity, counter-signing the voice of infancy, raised them to a grandeur transcending the Hebrew throne, although founded by God himself, and pronounced Solomon in all his glory not to be arrayed like one of these.”

Thomas De Quincey book Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

Pt. I.
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822-1856)

Thomas De Quincey photo

“So, then, Oxford Street, stonyhearted stepmother, thou that listenest to the sighs of orphans, and drinkest the tears of children, at length I was dismissed from thee.”

Thomas De Quincey book Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

Pt. I.
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822-1856)

Thomas De Quincey photo

“A promise is binding in the inverse ratio of the numbers to whom it is made.”

Thomas De Quincey book Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

Appendix.
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822-1856)

Thomas De Quincey photo

“Everlasting farewells! and again, and yet again reverberated—everlasting farewells!”

Thomas De Quincey book Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

Pt. III.
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822-1856)

Similar authors

Thomas De Quincey photo
Thomas De Quincey13
English author 1785–1859
Elizabeth Barrett Browning photo
Elizabeth Barrett Browning88
English poet, author None
George Eliot photo
George Eliot300
English novelist, journalist and translator None
Emily Brontë photo
Emily Brontë151
English novelist and poet None
Thomas Hardy photo
Thomas Hardy171
English novelist and poet None
Percy Bysshe Shelley photo
Percy Bysshe Shelley246
English Romantic poet None
Charles Spurgeon photo
Charles Spurgeon49
British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist None
Jane Austen photo
Jane Austen477
English novelist None
Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo
Samuel Taylor Coleridge220
English poet, literary critic and philosopher None
Fyodor Dostoyevsky photo
Fyodor Dostoyevsky155
Russian author None