Charles Lamb quotes

Charles Lamb was an English essayist and poet, recognized for his whimsical style and literary criticism. His most famous works include the essays collected in "Essays of Elia" and the children's book "Tales from Shakespeare," co-written with his sister Mary. He became a beloved figure in English literature for his warmth, wit, and humanity. Here are 170 of his quotes:

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

Charles Lamb

Lawyers, I suppose, were children once.

Charles Lamb

New Year's Day is every man's birthday.

Charles Lamb

I love to lose myself in other men's minds.

Charles Lamb

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

Charles Lamb

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.

Charles Lamb

My motto is: Contented with little, yet wishing for more.

Charles Lamb

I always arrive late at the office, but I make up for it by leaving early.

Charles Lamb

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.

Charles Lamb

He is no lawyer who cannot take two sides.

Charles Lamb

Riches are chiefly good because they give us time.

Charles Lamb

The red-letter days, now become, to all intents and purposes, dead-letter days.

Charles Lamb

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

Charles Lamb

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

Charles Lamb

It is good to love the unknown.

Charles Lamb

Here cometh April again, and as far as I can see the world hath more fools in it than ever.

Charles Lamb

Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and have her nonsense respected.

Charles Lamb

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.

Charles Lamb

For with G. D., to be absent from the body is sometimes (not to speak profanely) to be present with the Lord.

Charles Lamb

Returning to town in the stage-coach, which was filled with Mr. Gilman's guests, we stopped for a minute or two at Kentish Town. A woman asked the coachman, 'Are you full inside' Upon which Lamb put his head through the window and said, 'I am quite full inside that last piece of pudding at Mr. Gilman's did the business for me.'

Charles Lamb

I have been trying all my life to like Scotchmen, and am obliged to desist from the experiment in despair.

Charles Lamb

Not if I know myself at all.

Charles Lamb