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I'd Like To Grow Very Old As Slowly As Possible.
-Charles Lamb
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I'd Like To Grow

Charles Lamb
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I'd Like To Grow Very Old As Slowly As Possible.

Understanding the Quote: "i'd like to grow very old as slowly as possible...."

This quote by Charles Lamb reflects deeply on the theme of age. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Age, Aging, Grows, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Charles Lamb interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Charles Lamb

Charles Lamb is celebrated for insightful thoughts on age and aging. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Age
Aging
Grows
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Clap An Extinguisher Upon Your Irony If You Are Unhappily Blessed With A Vein Of It.
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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.
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I Even Think That, Sentimentally, I Am Disposed To Harmony. But Organically I Am Incapable Of A Tune.
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Tunes
Oh Call It By Some Better Name, For Friendship Sounds Too Cold.
Friendship
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I Could Never Hate Anyone I Knew.
Hate
Oh, Breathe Not His Name! Let It Sleep In The Shade, Where Cold And Unhonour'd His Relics Are Laid
Sleep
Names
Shade
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.
Dog
Book
Reading
Of All Sound Of All Bells... Most Solemn And Touching Is The Peal Which Rings Out The Old Year.
New Year
Holiday
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Separate From The Pleasure Of Your Company, I Don't Much Care If I Never See Another Mountain In My Life.
Life
Friendship
Mountain
We Encourage One Another In Mediocrity.
Mediocrity
Shakespeare Is One Of The Last Books One Should Like To Give Up, Perhaps The One Just Before The Dying Service In A Large Prayer Book.
Prayer
Giving Up
Book
Gluttony And Surfeiting Are No Proper Occasions For Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving
Gluttony
Occasions
To Be Thankful For What We Grasp Exceeding Our Proportion Is To Add Hypocrisy To Injustice.
Hypocrisy
Being Thankful
Add
Coleridge Declares That A Man Cannot Have A Good Conscience Who Refuses Apple Dumplings, And I Confess That I Am Of The Same Opinion.
Men
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We Were Happier When We Were Poorer, But We Were Also Younger.
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Not Many Sounds In Life, And I Include All Urban And All Rural Sounds, Exceed In Interest A Knock At The Door.
Doors
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I Mean Your Borrowers Of Books - Those Mutilators Of Collections, Spoilers Of The Symmetry Of Shelves, And Creators Of Odd Volumes.
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A Laxity Pervades The Popular Use Of Words.
Use
Our Appetites, Of One Or Another Kind, Are Excellent Spurs To Our Reason, Which Might Otherwise But Feebly Set About The Great Ends Of Preserving And Continuing The Species.
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The Drinking Man Is Never Less Himself Than During His Sober Intervals.
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How Sickness Enlarges The Dimension Of A Man’s Self To Himself!
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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.
Education
Teacher
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I Conceive Disgust At Those Impertinent And Misbecoming Familiarities, Inscribed Upon Your Ordinary Tombstones. Every Dead Man Must Take Upon Himself To Be Lecturing Me With His Odious Truism, That "such As He Now Is, I Must Shortly Be." Not So Shortly, Friend, Perhaps, As Thou Imaginest. In The Meantime I Am Alive. I Move About. I Am Worth Twenty Of Thee. Know Thy Betters!
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A Miser Is Sometimes A Grand Personification Of Fear. He Has A Fine Horror Of Poverty; And He Is Not Content To Keep Want From The Door, Or At Arm's Length, But He Places It, By Heaping Wealth Upon Wealth, At A Sublime Distance!
Distance
Doors
Sublime
Damn The Age. I'll Write For Antiquity.
Writing
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Trample Not On The Ruins Of A Man.
Men
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Shall I Ask The Brave Soldier Who Fights By My Side In The Cause Of Mankind, If Our Creeds Agree?
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The True Poet Dreams Being Awake.
Dream
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In The Indications Of Female Poverty There Can Be No Disguise. No Woman Dresses Below Herself From Caprice.
Dresses
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For God's Sake (i Never Was More Serious) Don't Make Me Ridiculous Any More By Terming Me Gentle-hearted In Print.
Dog
Gentleman
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The Beggar Wears All Colors Fearing None.
Fear
Color
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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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Thinking
Oh Stay! Oh Stay! Joy So Seldom Weaves A Chain Like This To-night, That Oh 't Is Pain To Break Its Links So Soon.
Pain
Night
Joy
Merit, God Knows, Is Very Little Rewarded.
Littles
Merit
God Knows
Don't Introduce Me To That Man! I Want To Go On Hating Him, And I Can't Hate A Man Whom I Know.
Attitude
Hate
Men
If There Be A Regal Solitude, It Is A Sick-bed. How The Patient Lords It There!
Sick
Solitude
Bed
There Is Absolutely No Such Thing As Reading But By A Candle. We Have Tried The Affectation Of A Book At Noon-day In Gardens, And In Sultry Arbours, But It Was Labor Thrown Away. Those Gay Motes In The Beam Come About You, Hovering And Teasing, Like So Many Coquets, That Will Have You All To Their Self, And Are Jealous Of Your Abstractions. By The Midnight Taper, The Writers Digests His Meditations. By The Same Light We Must Approach To Their Perusal, If We Would Catch The Flame, The Odour.
Book
Reading
Jealous
English Physicians Kill You, The French Let You Die.
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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.
I Like You
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Historical
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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Take All The Pleasures Of All The Spheres, And Multiply Each Through Endless Years,- One Minute Of Heaven Is Worth Them All.
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To Pile Up Honey Upon Sugar, And Sugar Upon Honey, To An Interminable Tedious Sweetness.
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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.
Believe
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All, All Are Gone, The Old Familiar Faces.
Faces
Gone
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Positively, The Best Thing A Man Can Have To Do, Is Nothing, And Next To That Perhaps — Good Works.
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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.
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Men
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Pain Is Life - The Sharper, The More Evidence Of Life.
Life
Pain
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Sassafras Wood Boiled Down To A Kind Of Tea, And Tempered With An Infusion Of Milk And Sugar Hath To Some A Delicacy Beyond The China Luxury.
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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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A Garden Was The Primitive Prison, Till Man With Promethean Felicity And Boldness, Luckily Sinned Himself Out Of It.
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I Hate A Man Who Swallows [his Food], Affecting Not To Know What He Is Eating. I Suspect His Taste In Higher Matters.
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Newspapers Always Excite Curiosity. No One Ever Puts One Down Without The Feeling Of Disappointment.
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Half As Sober As A Judge.
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Time Partially Reconciles Us To Anything. I Gradually Became Content--doggedly Contented, As Wild Animals In Cages.
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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."
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The Light That Lies In Woman's Eyes.
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Eye
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A Clear Fire, A Clean Hearth, And The Rigour Of The Game.
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It Is Good To Love The Unknown.
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Boys Are Capital Fellows In Their Own Way, Among Their Mates; But They Are Unwholesome Companions For Grown People.
Boys
People
Way
Not Childhood Alone, But The Young Man Till Thirty, Never Feels Practically That He Is Mortal.
Men
Childhood
Fragility
How Some They Have Died, And Some They Have Left Me, And Some Are Taken From Me; All Are Departed; All, All Are Gone, The Old Familiar Faces.
Taken
Departed
Gone
You Do Not Play Then At Whist, Sir? Alas, What A Sad Old Age You Are Preparing For Yourself!
Play
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Cards
Summer, As My Friend Coleridge Waggishly Writes, Has Set In With Its Usual Severity.
Summer
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Usual
There Are Like To Be Short Graces Where The Devil Plays Host.
Play
Grace
Devil
Asparagus Inspires Gentle Thoughts.
Food
Inspire
Cooking
Whose Wit In The Combat, As Gentle As Bright, Ne'er Carried A Heart-stain Away On Its Blade.
Heart
Blades
Stains
I Conceive Disgust At These Impertinent And Misbecoming Familiarities Inscribed Upon Your Ordinary Tombstone.
Tombstone
Ordinary
Disgusting
A Flow'ret Crushed In The Bud, A Nameless Piece Of Babyhood, Was In Her Cradle-coffin Lying; Extinct, With Scarce The Sense Of Dying
Lying
Dying
Coffins
Literature Is A Bad Crutch, But A Good Walking-stick.
Walking Sticks
Literature
Crutches
't Is Sweet To Think That Where'er We Rove We Are Sure To Find Something Blissful And Dear; And That When We 're Far From The Lips We Love, We 've But To Make Love To The Lips We Are Near.
Love
Sweet
Thinking
Gone Before To That Unknown And Silent Shore.
Silence
Gone
Silent
The World Meets Nobody Half Way.
Half
World
Way
The Man Must Have A Rare Recipe For Melancholy, Who Can Be Dull In Fleet Street.
Men
Recipes
Dull
A Child's Nature Is Too Serious A Thing To Admit Of Its Being Regarded As A Mere Appendage To Another Being.
Children
Parent
Serious
Not If I Know Myself At All.
Knowledge
Knows
Ifs
Tis The Privilege Of Friendship To Talk Nonsense, And To Have Nonsense Respected.
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Is It A Stale Remark To Say That I Have Constantly Found The Interest Excited At A Playhouse To Bear An Exact Inverse Proportion To The Price Paid For Admission?
Acting
Bears
Excited
This World Is All A Fleeting Show, For Man's Illusion Given The Smiles Of Joy, The Tears Of Woe, Deceitful Shine, Deceitful Flow, Theres Nothing True But Heaven.
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Men
Shining
No Woman Dresses Below Herself From Mere Caprice.
Dresses
Caprice
Mere
He Has Left Off Reading Altogether, To The Great Improvement Of His Originality.
Book
Reading
Originality
Do Not Fold, Spindle Or Mutilate.
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I Always Arrive Late At The Office, But I Make Up For It By Leaving Early.
Funny
Hilarious
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His Voice Was The Most Obnoxious Squeak I Ever Was Tormented With.
Sarcastic
Voice
Obnoxious
I Am, In Plainer Words, A Bundle Of Prejudices - Made Up Of Likings And Dislikings.
Prejudice
Made
Bundles
The Good Things Of Life Are Not To Be Had Singly, But Come To Us With A Mixture; Like A School-boy's Holiday, With A Task Affixed To The Tail Of It.
School
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The Truant Fancy Was A Wanderer Ever.
Fancy
Wanderers
How Sickness Enlarges The Dimensions Of A Man's Self To Himself! Supreme Selfishness Is Inculcated Upon Him As His Only Duty.
Health
Men
Self
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.
Moving
Home
Beer
I Am In Love With The Green Earth.
Nature
Garden
Earth
Your Absence Of Mind We Have Borne, Till Your Presence Of Body Came To Be Called In Question By It.
Mind
Body
Absence
Brandy And Water Spoils Two Good Things.
Food
Two
Water
What Have I Gained By Health? Intolerable Dullness. What By Mode Meals? A Total Blank.
Health
Meals
Blank
No Work Is Worse Than Overwork; The Mind Preys On Itself,--the Most Unwholesome Of Food.
Work
Mind
Prey
If Dirt Were Trumps, What Hands You Would Hold!
Hands
Dirt
Trump
A Poor Relation Is The Most Irrelevant Thing In Nature, A Piece Of Non Pertinent Correspondence, An Odious Approximation, A Haunting Conscience, A Preposterous Shadow, Lengthening In The Noontide Of Our Prosperity.
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Riches Are Chiefly Good Because They Give Us Time.
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I Am In Love With This Green Earth.
Love
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Green
I Have Sat Through An Italian Opera, Til, For Sheer Pain, And Inexplicable Anguish, I Have Rushed Out Into The Noisiest Places Of The Crowded Street, To Solace Myself With Sounds Which I Was Not Obliged To Follow And Get Rid Of The Distracting Torment Of Endless, Fruitless, Barren Attention!
Music
Pain
Italian
A Poor Relation—is The Most Irrelevant Thing In Nature.
Family
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I Have Something More To Do Than To Feel.
Feels
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.
Christmas
Thank You
Gratitude
My Motto Is: Contented With Little, Yet Wishing For More.
Wish
Contentment
Littles
I Cannot Sit And Think; Books Think For Me.
Book
Reading
Thinking
Beholding Heaven, And Feeling Hell.
Heaven
Feelings
Hell
For With G. D., To Be Absent From The Body Is Sometimes (not To Speak Profanely) To Be Present With The Lord.
Body
Sometimes
Speak
Books Think For Me. I Can Read Anything Which I Call A Book.
Book
Thinking
I Can Read
New Year's Day Is Every Man's Birthday.
Birthday
New Year
Holiday
I Toiled After It, Sir, As Some Men Toil After Virtue.
Men
Smoking
Toil
As Down In The Sunless Retreats Of The Ocean Sweet Flowers Are Springing No Mortal Can See, So Deep In My Soul The Still Prayer Of Devotion, Unheard By The World, Rises Silent To Thee. As Still To The Star Of Its Worship, Though Clouded, The Needle Points Faithfully O'er The Dim Sea, So Dark When I Roam In This Wintry World Shrouded, The Hope Of My Spirit Turns Trembling To Thee.
Sweet
Stars
Prayer
There Is A Pleasure In Affecting Affectation.
Pleasure
Oh, Ever Thus, From Childhood's Hour, I 've Seen My Fondest Hopes Decay; I Never Loved A Tree Or Flower But 't Was The First To Fade Away. I Never Nurs'd A Dear Gazelle, To Glad Me With Its Soft Black Eye, But When It Came To Know Me Well And Love Me, It Was Sure To Die.
Love
Hope
Flower
No One Ever Regarded The First Of January With Indifference. It Is That From Which All Date Their Time, And Count Upon What Is Left. It Is The Nativity Of Our Common Adam.
Marriage
New Year
Years
In Every Thing That Relates To Science, I Am A Whole Encyclopaedia Behind The Rest Of The World.
Science
World
Behinds
You May Derive Thoughts From Others; Your Way Of Thinking, The Mould In Which Your Thoughts Are Cast, Must Be Your Own.
Thinking
May
Way
Here Cometh April Again, And As Far As I Can See The World Hath More Fools In It Than Ever.
Funny Inspirational
Spring
Fools Day
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.
Character
Imagination
Mind
Lawyers, I Suppose, Were Children Once.
Children
Law
Political
We Are Ashamed At The Sight Of A Monkey--somehow As We Are Shy Of Poor Relations.
Sight
Shy
Monkeys
Think What You Would Have Been Now, If Instead Of Being Fed With Tales And Old Wives' Fables In Childhood, You Had Been Crammed With Geography And Natural History!
Thinking
Wife
Childhood
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.
Sweet
Children
Kind
All People Have Their Blind Side-their Superstitions.
People
Superstitions
Sides
How Often You Are Irresistibly Drawn To A Plain, Unassuming Woman, Whose Soft Silvery Tones Render Her Positively Attractive! In The Social Circle, How Pleasant It Is To Hear A Woman Talk In That Low Key Which Always Characterizes The True Lady. In The Sanctuary Of Home, How Such A Voice Soothes The Fretful Child And Cheers The Weary Husband!
Cheer
Children
Husband
The Most Mortifying Infirmity In Human Nature, To Feel In Ourselves, Or To Contemplate In Another, Is Perhaps Cowardice.
Anxiety
Human Nature
Cowardice
Milton Almost Requires A Solemn Service Of Music To Be Played Before You Enter Upon Him. But He Brings His Music, To Which Who Listen Had Need Bring Docile Thoughts And Purged Ears.
Reading
Needs
Ears
In Some Respects The Better A Book Is, The Less It Demands From The Binding.
Book
Demand
Binding
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?
Dream
Sweet
Home
And When Once The Young Heart Of A Maiden Is Stolen, The Maiden Herself Will Steal After It Soon.
Heart
Stealing
Stolen
So Near Are The Boundaries Of Panegyric And Invective, That A Worn-out Sinner Is Sometimes Found To Make The Best Declaimer Against Sin. The Same High-seasoned Descriptions Which In His Unregenerate State Served To Inflame His Appetites, In His New Province Of A Moralist Will Serve Him (a Little Turned) To Expose The Enormity Of Those Appetites In Other Men.
Men
Littles
Sometimes
The Pilasters Reaching Down Were Adorned With A Glistering Substance (i Know Not What) Under Glass (as It Seemed), Resembling - A Homely Fancy, But I Judged It To Be Sugar-candy; Yet To My Raised Imagination, Divested Of Its Homelier Qualities, It Appeared A Glorified Candy.
Glasses
Imagination
Quality
We Gain Nothing By Being With Such As Ourselves. We Encourage One Another In Mediocrity. I Am Always Longing To Be With Men More Excellent Than Myself.
Men
Mediocrity
Association
Satire Does Not Look Pretty Upon A Tombstone.
Tombstone
Doe
Looks
O Money, Money, How Blindly Thou Hast Been Worshipped, And How Stupidly Abused! Thou Are Health And Liberty And Strength, And He That Has Thee May Rattle His Pockets At The Foul Fiend!
Money
Liberty
Pockets
Man Is A Gaming Animal. He Must Always Be Trying To Get The Better In Something Or Other.
Men
Animal
Gambling
To Be Sick Is To Enjoy Monarchical Prerogatives.
Sick
Enjoy
Prerogative
I Know That A Sweet Child Is The Sweetest Thing In Nature, Not Even Excepting The Delicate Creatures Which Bear Them.
Sweet
Children
Bears
Cultivate Simplicity, Coleridge.
Simplicity
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.
Pockets
Painful
Deny
The Trumpet Does Not More Stun You By Its Loudness, Than A Whisper Teases You By Its Provoking Inaudibility.
Doe
Tease
Trumpets
How I Like To Be Liked, And What I Do To Be Liked!
I Have Done All That I Came Into This World To Do. I Have Worked Task Work, And Have The Rest Of The Day To Myself.
Tasks
Done
World
She Unbent Her Mind Afterwards - Over A Book.
Book
Mind
Be Not Frightened At The Hard Words "imposition," "imposture;" Give And Ask No Questions. Cast Thy Bread Upon The Waters. Some Have, Unawares, Entertained Angels.
Angel
Giving
Water
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.
Men
Race
Two
Riddle Of Destiny, Who Can Show What Thy Short Visit Meant, Or Know What Thy Errand Here Below?
Destiny
Errands
Riddle
The Harp That Once Through Tara's Halls The Soul Of Music Shed, Now Hangs As Mute On Tara's Walls As If That Soul Were Fled. So Sleeps The Pride Of Former Days, So Glory's Thrill Is O'er; And Hearts That Once Beat High For Praise Now Feel That Pulse No More.
Music
Wall
Heart
Nothing To Me Is More Distasteful Than That Entire Complacency And Satisfaction Which Beam In The Countenances Of A New Married Couple; In That Of The Lady Particularly; It Tells You That Her Lot Is Disposed Of In This World; That You Can Have No Hopes For Her.
Marriage
Wedding
Couple
Opinions Is A Species Of Property - I Am Always Desirous Of Sharing.
Opinion
Species
Property
Science Has Succeeded To Poetry, No Less In The Little Walks Of Children Than With Men. Is There No Possibility Of Averting This Sore Evil?
Children
Science
Men
The Red-letter Days, Now Become, To All Intents And Purposes, Dead-letter Days.
Purpose
Letters
Festivals
My Theory Is To Enjoy Life, But My Practice Is Against It.
Practice
Enjoy Life
Theory
Antiquity! Thou Wondrous Charm, What Art Thou? That Being Nothing Art Everything? When Thou Wert, Thou Wert Not Antiquity - Then Thou Wert Nothing, But Hadst A Remoter Antiquity, As Thou Calledst It, To Look Back To With Blind Veneration; Thou Thyself Being To Thyself Flat, Jejune, Modern! What Mystery Lurks In This Retroversion? Or What Half Januses Are We, That Cannot Look Forward With The Same Idolatry With Which We For Ever Revert! The Mighty Future Is As Nothing, Being Everything! The Past Is Everything, Being Nothing!
Art
Past
Looks
Oh For A Tongue To Curse The Slave Whose Treason, Like A Deadly Blight, Comes O'er The Councils Of The Brave, And Blasts Them In Their Hour Of Might!
Bravery
Might
Tongue
By Myself Walking, To Myself Talking.
Talking
Walking
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.
Reality
Theatre
Pressure
A Sweet Child Is The Sweetest Thing In Nature.
Sweet
Children
Sweetest
Ceremony Is An Invention To Take Off The Uneasy Feeling Which We Derive From Knowing Ourselves To Be Less The Object Of Love And Esteem With A Fellow-creature Than Some Other Person Is. It Endeavours To Make Up, By Superior Attentions In Little Points, For That Invidious Preference Which It Is Forced To Deny In The Greater.
Knowing
Feelings
Attention
Surely It Is A Matter Of Joy, That Your Faith In Jesus Has Been Preserved; The Comforter That Should Relieve You Is Not Far From You. But As You Are A Christian, In The Name Of That Saviour, Who Was Filled With Bitterness And Made Druken With Wormwood, I Conjre You To Have Recourse In Frequent Prayer To 'his God And Your God,' The God Of Mercies, And Father Of All Comfort. Your Poor Father Is, I Hope, Almost Senseless Of The Calamity; The Unconscious Instrument Of Divine Providence Knows It Not, And Your Mother Is In Heaven.
Christian
Mother
Jesus
Who First Invented Work, And Bound The Free And Holiday-rejoicing Spirit Down . . . . To That Dry Drudgery At The Desk's Dead Wood? . . . . Sabbathless Satan!
Work
Holiday
Dry
The Vices Of Some Men Are Magnificent.
Men
Vices
Magnificent
I Have Passed All My Days In London, Until I Have Formed As Many And Intense Local Attachments As Any Of You Mountaineers Can Have Done With Dead Nature.
Attachment
Done
London
For Thy Sake, Tobacco, I Would Do Anything But Die.
Smoking
Sake
Tobacco
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.
Book
Eye
Modern Novel
We Are Nothing; Less Than Nothing, And Dreams. We Are Only What Might Have Been.
Dream
Might
Lethe
No One Ever Regarded The First Of January With Indifference.
New Year
Time
Years
And The Tear That We Shed, Though In Secret It Rolls, Shall Long Keep His Memory Green In Our Souls.
Memories
Long
Soul
Our Spirits Grow Gray Before Our Hairs.
Hair
Enthusiasm
Spirit
I Give Thee All,-i Can No More, Though Poor The Off'ring Be; My Heart And Lute Are All The Store That I Can Bring To Thee.
Heart
Giving
Poor
When I Am Not Walking, I Am Reading. I Cannot Sit And Think.
Reading
Thinking
Walking
Cultivate Simplicity Or Rather Should I Say Banish Elaborateness, For Simplicity Springs Spontaneous From The Heart.
Spring
Heart
Simplicity
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.
Law
Ears
Pistols
Let Us Live For The Beauty Of Our Own Reality.
Beauty
Reality
When Twilight Dews Are Falling Soft Upon The Rosy Sea, Love, I Watch The Star Whose Beam So Oft Has Lighted Me To Thee, Love.
Love
Stars
Fall
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.
Brother
Book
Doe
What A Place To Be In Is An Old Library! It Seems As Though All The Souls Of All The Writers That Have Bequeathed Their Labours To These Bodleians Were Reposing Here As In Some Dormitory, Or Middle State. I Do Not Want To Handle, To Profane The Leaves, Their Winding-sheets. I Could As Soon Dislodge A Shade. I Seem To Inhale Learning, Walking Amid Their Foliage; And The Odor Of Their Old Moth-scented Coverings Is Fragrant As The First Bloom Of The Sciential Apples Which Grew Amid The Happy Orchard.
Apples
Soul
Library
I Allow No Hot-beds In The Gardens Of Parnassus.
Garden
Poetry
Simplicity
My Only Books Were Woman's Looks,- And Folly 's All They 've Taught Me.
Book
Looks
Taught
I Grow Ominously Tired Of Official Confinement. Thirty Years Have I Served The Philistines, And My Neck Is Not Subdued To The Yoke. You Don't Know How Wearisome It Is To Breathe The Air Of Four Pent Walls Without Relief Day After Day, All The Golden Hours Of The Day Between Ten And Four Without Ease Or Interposition ... These Pestilential Clerk-faces Always In One's Dish. O For A Few Years Between The Grave And The Desk!
Wall
Tired
Air
Dr Parr...asked Him, How He Had Acquired His Power Of Smoking At Such A Rate? Lamb Replied, 'i Toiled After It, Sir, As Some Men Toil After Virtue.'
Men
Smoking
Toil
From A Poor Man, Poor In Time, I Was Suddenly Lifted Up Into A Vast Revenue; I Could See No End Of My Possessions; I Wanted Some Steward, Or Judicious Bailiff, To Manage My Estates In Time For Me.
Men
Poor
Ends
Nothing Puzzles Me More Than Time And Space; And Yet Nothing Troubles Me Less, As I Never Think About Them.
Time
Science
Thinking
Fly Not Yet; 't Is Just The Hour When Pleasure, Like The Midnight Flower That Scorns The Eye Of Vulgar Light, Begins To Bloom For Sons Of Night And Maids Who Love The Moon.
Love
Flower
Eye
Shut Not Thy Purse-strings Always Against Painted Distress.
Charity
Purses
Philanthropy
There Was A Little Man, And He Had A Little Soul; And He Said, Little Soul, Let Us Try, Try, Try!
Men
Soul
Trying
We Love To Chew The Cud Of A Foregone Vision; To Collect The Scattered Rays Of A Brighter Phantasm, Or Act Over Again, With Firmer Nerves, The Sadder Nocturnal Tragedies.
Vision
Tragedy
Rays
When Thus The Heart Is In A Vein Of Tender Thought, The Simplest Strain Can Touch It With Peculiar Power.
Heart
Power
Peculiar
I Am Retired Leisure. I Am To Be Met With In Trim Gardens. I Am Already Come To Be Known By My Vacant Face And Careless Gesture, Perambulating At No Fixed Pace Nor With Any Settled Purpose. I Walk About; Not To And From.
Retirement
Garden
Purpose
A Man Cannot Have A Pure Mind Who Refuses Apple Dumplings.
Men
Apples
Mind
May Be The Truth Is, That One Pipe Is Wholesome, Two Pipes Toothsome, Three Pipes Noisome, Four Pipes Fulsome, Five Pipes Quarrelsome; And That's The Some On't.
Two
Smoking
Three
What A Dead Thing Is A Clock, With Its Ponderous Embowelments Of Lead And Brass, Its Pert Or Solemn Dullness Of Communication, Compared With The Simple Altar-like Structure And Silent Heart-language Of The Old Sundials! It Stood As The Garden God Of Christian Gardens. Why Is It Almost Everywhere Vanished? If Its Business-use Be Superseded By More Elaborate Inventions, Its Moral Uses, Its Beauty, Might Have Pleaded For Its Continuance.
Christian
Business
Communication
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?
Children
Heart
Childhood
We All Have Some Taste Or Other, Of Too Ancient A Date To Admit Of Our Remembering It Was An Acquired One.
Taste
Remember
Ancient
The Greatest Pleasure I Know, Is To Do A Good Action By Stealth, And To Have It Found Out By Accident.
Character
Deeds Done
Charity
Man, While He Loves, Is Never Quite Depraved.
Love
Men
Never Quit
Dream Not ... Of Having Tasted All The Grandeur And Wildness Of Fancy Till You Have Gone Mad!
Dream
Mad
Gone
The Muses Were Dumb While Apollo Lectured.
Silence
Dumb
Apollo
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.
School
Childhood
Gone
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?
Art
Science
World
He Who Hath Not A Dram Of Folly In His Mixture Hath Pounds Of Much Worse Matter In His Composition.
Perfection
Mixtures
Matter
Books Which Are No Books.
Book
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