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Positively, the best thing a man can have to do, is nothing, and next to that perhaps — good works.

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
Men
Positively
Works
Perhaps
Next
Best
Nothing
Thing
Good

More quotes by Charles Lamb

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Dream not ... of having tasted all the grandeur and wildness of fancy till you have gone mad!
Charles Lamb
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The drinking man is never less himself than during his sober intervals.
Charles Lamb
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A sweet child is the sweetest thing in nature.
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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Dehortations from the use of strong liquors have been the favourite topic of sober declaimers in all ages, and have been received with abundance of applause by water-drinking critics. But with the patient himself, the man that is to be cured, unfortunately their sound has seldom prevailed.
Charles Lamb
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Tis unpleasant to meet a beggar. It is painful to deny him and, if you relieve him, it is so much out of your pocket.
Charles Lamb
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A presentation copy...is a copy of a book whoch does not sell, sent you by the author, with his foolish autograph at the beginning of it for which, if a stranger, he only demands your friendship if a brother author, he expects from you a book of yours, which does not sell, in return.
Charles Lamb
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The world meets nobody half way.
Charles Lamb
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To be sick is to enjoy monarchical prerogatives.
Charles Lamb
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We are nothing less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence, and a name.
Charles Lamb
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I know that a sweet child is the sweetest thing in nature?but the prettier the kind of a thing is, the more desirable it is that it should be pretty of its kind.
Charles Lamb
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Books think for me. I can read anything which I call a book.
Charles Lamb
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For thy sake, tobacco, I would do anything but die.
Charles Lamb
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The truant Fancy was a wanderer ever.
Charles Lamb
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Coleridge declares that a man cannot have a good conscience who refuses apple dumplings, and I confess that I am of the same opinion.
Charles Lamb
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Literature is a bad crutch, but a good walking-stick.
Charles Lamb
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The laws of Pluto's kingdom know small difference between king and cobbler, manager and call-boy and, if haply your dates of life were conterminant, you are quietly taking your passage, cheek by cheek (O ignoble levelling of Death) with the shade of some recently departed candle-snuffer.
Charles Lamb
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A man may do very well with a very little knowledge, and scarce be found out in mixed company everybody is so much more ready to produce his own, than to call for a display of your acquisitions.
Charles Lamb
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Who has not felt how sadly sweet The dream of home, the dream of home, Steals o'er the heart, too soon to fleet, When far o'er sea or land we roam?
Charles Lamb
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You do not play then at whist, sir? Alas, what a sad old age you are preparing for yourself!
Charles Lamb