Quote#Children
So, then, Oxford Street, stonyhearted stepmother, thou that listenest…
Quote byThomas De Quincey · 1785–1859
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822-1856), Pt. I..
English (original)
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
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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.
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Dyspepsy is the ruin of most things: empires, expeditions, and everything else.
For if once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once begin [sic] upon this …
The burden of the incommunicable.
Thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh just, subtle, and mighty opium!