Quote

Can we ring the bells backward? Can we unlearn the arts that pretend to civilize, and then burn the world? There is a march of science but who shall beat the drums for its retreat?

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
Science
Pretend
Civilize
Art
March
Unlearn
World
Rings
Drums
Arts
Backward
Beat
Retreat
Accounts
Bells
Beats
Ring
Shall
Burn

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A poor relation—is the most irrelevant thing in nature.
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The cheerful Sabbath bells, wherever heard, Strike pleasant on the sense, most like the voice Of one, who from the far-off hills proclaims Tidings of good to Zion.
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I am accounted by some people as a good man. How cheap that character is acquired! Pay your debts, don't borrow money, nor twist your kitten's neck off, nor disturb a congregation, etc., your business is done. I know things of myself, which would make every friend I have fly me as a plague patient.
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In some respects the better a book is, the less it demands from the binding.
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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!
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Is the world all grown up? Is childhood dead? Or is there not in the bosom of the wisest and the best some of the child's heart left, to respond to its earliest enchantments?
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I can scarce bring myself to believe, that I am admitted to a familiar correspondence, and all the license of friendship, with a man who writes blank verse like Milton.
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I like you and your book, ingenious Hone! In whose capacious all-embracing leaves The very marrow of tradition 's shown And all that history, much that fiction weaves.
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No work is worse than overwork the mind preys on itself,--the most unwholesome of food.
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How sickness enlarges the dimensions of a man's self to himself! Supreme selfishness is inculcated upon him as his only duty.
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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.
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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.
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The English writer, Charles Lamb, said one day: I hate that man. But you don't know him. Of course, I don't, said Lamb. Do you think I could possibly hate a man I know?
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Books of quick interest, that hurry on for incidents are for the eye to glide over only. It will not do to read them out. I could never listen to even the better kind of modern novels without extreme irksomeness.
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Philanthropy, like charity, must begin at home.
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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.
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To be sick is to enjoy monarchical prerogatives.
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English physicians kill you, the French let you die.
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A presentation copy, reader,-if haply you are yet innocent of such favours-is a copy of a book which does not sell, sent you by the author.
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