Quote#Time
For if once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to…
Quote byThomas De Quincey · 1785–1859
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: "A Second Paper on Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts" (1839)..
English (original)
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 downward path, you never know where you are to stop. Many a man has dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of at the time.
— Thomas De Quincey
More from 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.
Dyspepsy is the ruin of most things: empires, expeditions, and everything else.
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.
The burden of the incommunicable.
Thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh just, subtle, and mighty opium!