Charles Lamb

Riddle of destiny, who can show What thy short visit meant, or know What thy errand here below?

Far transcend my weak invention. ’Tis a simple Christian child, Missionary young and mild, From her store of script’ral knowledge (Bible-taught without a college) Which by reading she could gather,

A Pun is a Noble Thing per se: O never lug it in as an accessory. A Pun is a sole object for reflection (vide my aids to that recessment from a savage state)—it is entire, it fills the mind: it is perfect as a Sonnet, better.

I came home for ever!

The flouting infidel doth mock when Christians cry

Who first invented work, and bound the free And holiday-rejoicing spirit down . . . . . . . . . To that dry drudgery at the desk's dead wood? . . . . . . . . . Sabbath-less Satan!

Fanny Kelly's divine plain face.

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

[Of Coleridge] His face when he repeats his verses hath its ancient glory, an Archangel a little damaged.

This very night I am going to leave off Tobacco! Surely there must be some other world in which this unconquerable purpose shall be realized.

Any thing awful makes me laugh. I misbehaved once at a funeral.

A good-natured woman...which is as much as you can expect from a friend's wife, whom you got acquainted with a bachelor.

Gone before To that unknown and silent shore.

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?

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

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

Please to blot out gentle hearted, and substitute drunken dog, ragged head, seld-shaven, odd-ey'd, stuttering, or any other epithet which truly and properly belongs to the Gentleman in question.

For God's sake (I never was more serious), don't make me ridiculous any more by terming me gentle-hearted in print.

I have had playmates, I have had companions, In my days of childhood, in my joyful school days— All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have something more to do than to feel.

Cultivate simplicity or rather should I say banish elaborateness, for simplicity springs spontaneous from the heart.

Severe and saintly righteousness Composed the clear white bridal dress; Jesus, the Son of Heaven's high King Bought with his blood the marriage ring