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Call for the grandest of all earthly spectacles, what is that? It is the sun going to his rest.

Thomas de Quincey

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Thomas de Quincey
Age: 74 †
Born: 1785
Born: August 15
Died: 1859
Died: December 8
Author
Autobiographer
Essayist
Journalist
Linguist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Philosopher
Prosaist
Translator
Writer
Manchester
England
Thomas Penson De Quincey
De Quincey
Sun
Rest
Call
Going
Grandest
Spectacles
Earthly

More quotes by Thomas de Quincey

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No man will ever unfold the capacities of his own intellect who does not at least checker his life with solitude.
Thomas de Quincey
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It is an impressive truth that sometimes in the very lowest forms of duty, less than which would rank a man as a villain, there is, nevertheless the sublimest ascent of self-sacrifice. To do less would class you as an object of eternal scorn, to do so much presumes the grandeur of heroism.
Thomas de Quincey
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Solitude, though it may be silent as light, is like light, the mightiest of agencies for solitude is essential to man. All men come into this world alone and leave it alone.
Thomas de Quincey
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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.
Thomas de Quincey
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It is one of the misfortunes in life that one must read thousands of books only to discover that one need not have read them.
Thomas de Quincey
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Often one's dear friend talks something which one scruples to call rigmarole.
Thomas de Quincey
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Surely everyone is aware of the divine pleasures which attend a wintry fireside candles at four o'clock, warm hearthrugs, tea, a fair tea-maker, shutters closed, curtains flowing in ample draperies to the floor, whilst the wind and rain are raging audibly without.
Thomas de Quincey
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The peace of nature and of the innocent creatures of god seems to be secure and deep, only so long as the presence of man and his restless and unquiet spirit are not there to trouble its sanctity.
Thomas de Quincey
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Grief! thou art classed amongst the depressing passions. And true it is that thou humblest to the dust, but also thou exaltest to the clouds. Thou shakest us with ague, but also thou steadiest like frost. Thou sickenest the heart, but also thou healest its infirmities.
Thomas de Quincey
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All parts of knowledge have their origin in metaphysics, and finally, perhaps, revolve into it.
Thomas de Quincey
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There is first the literature of KNOWLEDGE, and secondly, the literature of POWER. The function of the first is -- to teach the function of the second is -- to move.
Thomas de Quincey
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The laughter of girls is, and ever was, among the delightful sounds of earth.
Thomas de Quincey
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But my way of writing is rather to think aloud, and follow my own humours, than much to consider who is listening to me and, if I stop to consider what is proper to be said to this or that person, I shall soon come to doubt whether any part at all is proper.
Thomas de Quincey
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All is finite in the present and even that finite is infinite in it velocity of flight towards death. But in God there is nothing finite...Upon a night of earthquake he builds a thousand years of pleasant habitations for man. Upon the sorrow of an infant he raises oftentimes from human intellects glorious vintages that could not else have been.
Thomas de Quincey
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A promise is binding in the inverse ratio of the numbers to whom it is made.
Thomas de Quincey
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Cows are amongst the gentlest of breathing creatures none show more passionate tenderness to their young when deprived of them and, in short, I am not ashamed to profess a deep love for these quiet creatures.
Thomas de Quincey
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Under our present enormous accumulation of books, I do affirm that a most miserable distraction of choice must be very generally incident to the times that the symptoms of it are in fact very prevalent, and that one of the chief symptoms is an enormous 'gluttonism' for books.
Thomas de Quincey
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Kings should disdain to die, and only disappear.
Thomas de Quincey
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Books, we are told, propose to instruct or to amuse. Indeed! A true antithesis to knowledge, in this case, is not pleasure, but power. All that is literature seeks to communicate power all that is not literature, to communicate knowledge.
Thomas de Quincey
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All men come into this world alone and leave it alone.
Thomas de Quincey