Quote

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.

Charles Lamb

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Charles Lamb
Age: 59 †
Born: 1775
Born: February 10
Died: 1834
Died: December 27
Literary Critic
Playwright
Poet
Writer
London
England
Intellect
Feather
Ears
Pistols
Nicer
Laws
Feathers
Limits
Wit
Law
Limit
Tickle
Bound
Pistol
Bounds
Pun

More quotes by Charles Lamb

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Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever puts one down without the feeling of disappointment.
Charles Lamb
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It is with some violation of the imagination that we conceive of an actor belonging to the relations of private life, so closely do we identify these persons in our mind with the characters which they assume upon the stage.
Charles Lamb
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Summer, as my friend Coleridge waggishly writes, has set in with its usual severity.
Charles Lamb
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Shut not thy purse-strings always against painted distress.
Charles Lamb
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Of all sound of all bells... most solemn and touching is the peal which rings out the Old Year.
Charles Lamb
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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
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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.
Charles Lamb
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Were I Diogenes, I would not move out of a kilderkin into a hogshead, though the first had had nothing but small beer in it, and the second reeked claret.
Charles Lamb
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Why are we never quite at ease in the presence of a schoolmaster? Because we are conscious that he is not quite at his ease in ours. He is awkward, and out of place in the society of his equals. He comes like Gulliver from among his little people, and he cannot fit the stature of his understanding to yours.
Charles Lamb
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To be thankful for what we grasp exceeding our proportion is to add hypocrisy to injustice.
Charles Lamb
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Oh call it by some better name, For friendship sounds too cold.
Charles Lamb
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Gone before To that unknown and silent shore.
Charles Lamb
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Not if I know myself at all.
Charles Lamb
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Whose wit in the combat, as gentle as bright, Ne'er carried a heart-stain away on its blade.
Charles Lamb
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I am, in plainer words, a bundle of prejudices - made up of likings and dislikings.
Charles Lamb
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Those evening bells! those evening bells! How many a tale their music tells Of youth and home, and that sweet time When last I heard their soothing chime!
Charles Lamb
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We do not go to the theatre like our ancestors, to escape from the pressure of reality, so much as to confirm our experience of it.
Charles Lamb
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In the Negro countenance you will often meet with strong traits of benignity. I have felt yearnings of tenderness towards some of these faces.
Charles Lamb
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While childhood, and while dreams, producing childhood, shall be left, imagination shall not have spread her holy wings totally to fly the earth.
Charles Lamb
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Rags, which are the reproach of poverty, are the beggar's robes, and graceful insignia of his profession, his tenure, his full dress, the suit in which he is expected to show himself in public.
Charles Lamb