Charles Lamb

Not if I know myself at all.

What have I gained by health? Intolerable dullness. What by mode meals? A total blank.

How sickness enlarges the dimensions of a man's self to himself! Supreme selfishness is inculcated upon him as his only duty.

The only true time which a man can properly call his own, is that which he has all to himself; the rest, though in some sense he may be said to live it, is other people's time, not his.

Nothing puzzles me more than time and space; and yet nothing troubles me less, as I never think about them.

Of all sound of all bells... most solemn and touching is the peal which rings out the Old Year.

Positively, the best thing a man can have to do, is nothing, and next to that perhaps Ђ' good works.

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.

The teller of a mirthful tale has latitude allowed him. We are content with less than absolute truth.

The measure of choosing well, is, whether a man likes and finds good in what he has chosen.

The man must have a rare recipe for melancholy, who can be dull in Fleet Street.

The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow and the men who lend.

Shakespeare is one of the last books one should like to give up, perhaps the one just before the Dying Service in a large Prayer book.

Riches are chiefly good because they give us time.

Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever puts one down without the feeling of disappointment.

It is good to love the unknown.

For thy sake, tobacco, I would do anything but die.

Cards are war, in disguise of a sport.

Boys are capital fellows in their own way, among their mates; but they are unwholesome companions for grown people.

Asparagus inspires gentle thoughts.

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.

Clap an extinguisher upon your irony if you are unhappily blessed with a vein of it.

Anything awful makes me laugh. I misbehaved once at a funeral.

A laugh is worth a hundred groans in any market.

The beggar wears all colors fearing none.

My theory is to enjoy life, but the practice is against it.

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.

I am determined that my children shall be brought up in their father's religion, if they can find out what it is.

I'd like to grow very old as slowly as possible.

The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth and have it found out by accident.