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Reader, If You Are Gifted With Nerves Like Mine, Aspire To Any Character But That Of A Wit.
-Charles Lamb
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Reader, If You Are

Charles Lamb
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Reader, If You Are Gifted With Nerves Like Mine, Aspire To Any Character But That Of A Wit.

Understanding the Quote: "reader, if you are gifted with nerves like mine, aspire to any..."

This quote by Charles Lamb reflects deeply on the theme of character. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Character, Nerves, Wit, 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 character and nerves. 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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Character
Nerves
Wit
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And When Once The Young Heart Of A Maiden Is Stolen, The Maiden Herself Will Steal After It Soon.
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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.
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This Very Night I Am Going To Leave Off Tobacco! Surely There Must Be Some Other World In Which This Unconquerable Purpose Shall Be Realised.
Night
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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.
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To Sigh, Yet Feel No Pain; To Weep, Yet Scarce Know Why; To Sport An Hour With Beauty's Chain, Then Throw It Idly By.
Beauty
Sports
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It Is Good To Love The Unknown.
Love
I'd Like To Grow Very Old As Slowly As Possible.
Age
Aging
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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
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Cultivate Simplicity, Coleridge.
Simplicity
New Year's Day Is Every Man's Birthday.
Birthday
New Year
Holiday
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.
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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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To Be Sick Is To Enjoy Monarchical Prerogatives.
Sick
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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.
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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.
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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
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Ears
English Physicians Kill You, The French Let You Die.
Physicians
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Beholding Heaven, And Feeling Hell.
Heaven
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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
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I Own That I Am Disposed To Say Grace Upon Twenty Other Occasions In The Course Of The Day Besides My Dinner. I Want A Form For Setting Out Upon A Pleasant Walk, For A Moonlight Ramble, For A Friendly Meeting, Or A Solved Problem. Why Have We None For Books, These Spiritual Repasts-a Grace Before Milton-a Grace Before Shakespeare-a Devotional Exercise Proper To Be Said Before Reading The Fairie Queene?
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How Convalescence Shrinks A Man Back To His Pristine Stature! Where Is Now The Space, Which He Occupied So Lately, In His Own, In The Family's Eye?
Eye
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Space
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
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Man Is A Gaming Animal.
Animal
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Man Is A Gaming Animal. He Must Always Be Trying To Get The Better In Something Or Other.
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To Be Thankful For What We Grasp Exceeding Our Proportion Is To Add Hypocrisy To Injustice.
Hypocrisy
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Add
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?
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Oh, The Pleasure Of Eating My Dinner Alone!
Dining Alone
Dinner
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Positively, The Best Thing A Man Can Have To Do, Is Nothing, And Next To That Perhaps — Good Works.
Men
Next
Good Work
I Am In Love With This Green Earth.
Love
Earth
Green
Oh Call It By Some Better Name, For Friendship Sounds Too Cold.
Friendship
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Sound
My Motto Is: Contented With Little, Yet Wishing For More.
Wish
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Littles
Boys Are Capital Fellows In Their Own Way, Among Their Mates; But They Are Unwholesome Companions For Grown People.
Boys
People
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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!
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I Am In Love With The Green Earth.
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We Are Ashamed At The Sight Of A Monkey--somehow As We Are Shy Of Poor Relations.
Sight
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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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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
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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.
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I Ask And Wish Not To Appear More Beauteous, Rich Or Gay: Lord, Make Me Wiser Every Year, And Better Every Day.
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Of All Sound Of All Bells... Most Solemn And Touching Is The Peal Which Rings Out The Old Year.
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I Am, In Plainer Words, A Bundle Of Prejudices - Made Up Of Likings And Dislikings.
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'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.
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Thinking
It Is Rather An Unpleasant Fact, That The Ugliest And Awkwardest Of Brute Animals Have The Greatest Resemblance To Man: The Monkey And The Bear. The Monkey Is Ugly Too (so We Think) Because He Is Like Man--as The Bear Is Awkward, Because The Cumbrous Action Of Its Huge Paws Seems To Be A Preposterous Imitation Of The Motions Of Human Hands. Men And Apes Are The Only Animals That Have Hairs On The Under Eye-lid. Let Kings Know This.
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Friend Of My Bosom, Thou More Than A Brother, Why Wert Thou Not Born In My Father's Dwelling?
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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.
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Lawyers, I Suppose, Were Children Once.
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He Who Hath Not A Dram Of Folly In His Mixture Hath Pounds Of Much Worse Matter In His Composition.
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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
I Love To Lose Myself In Other Men's Minds.... Books Think For Me.
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Thinking
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.
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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.
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Opinions Is A Species Of Property - I Am Always Desirous Of Sharing.
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Species
Property
I Counsel Thee, Shut Not Thy Heart, Nor Thy Library.
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I Know That A Sweet Child Is The Sweetest Thing In Nature, Not Even Excepting The Delicate Creatures Which Bear Them.
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If Dirt Were Trumps, What Hands You Would Hold!
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Dirt
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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.
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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.
Luxury
Tea
Delicacy
Asparagus Inspires Gentle Thoughts.
Food
Inspire
Cooking
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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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?
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Bears
Excited
We Were Happier When We Were Poorer, But We Were Also Younger.
Poverty
May My Last Breath Be Drawn Through A Pipe, And Exhaled In A Jest.
Smoking
May
Lasts
There Is Not In The Wide World A Valley So Sweet As That Vale In Whose Bosom The Bright Waters Meet.
Sweet
Water
Valleys
Gone Before To That Unknown And Silent Shore.
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Gone
Silent
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.'
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Smoking
Toil
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.
Kings
Boys
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Nothing Puzzles Me More Than Time And Space; And Yet Nothing Troubles Me Less, As I Never Think About Them.
Time
Science
Thinking
My Only Books Were Woman's Looks,- And Folly 's All They 've Taught Me.
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Men Marry For Fortune, And Sometimes To Please Their Fancy; But, Much Oftener Than Is Suspected, They Consider What The World Will Say Of It--how Such A Woman In Their Friends' Eyes Will Look At The Head Of A Table. Hence We See So Many Insipid Beauties Made Wives Of, That Could Not Have Struck The Particular Fancy Of Any Man That Had Any Fancy At All.
Eye
Men
Wife
For Thy Sake, Tobacco, I Would Do Anything But Die.
Smoking
Sake
Tobacco
A Sweet Child Is The Sweetest Thing In Nature.
Sweet
Children
Sweetest
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
Book
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.
Zion
Voice
Cheerful
It Is Good To Have Friends At Court.
Friends
Court
I Have Something More To Do Than To Feel.
Feels
Wert Thou All That I Wish Thee, Great, Glorious, And Free, First Flower Of The Earth And First Gem Of The Sea.
Flower
Sea
Wish
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
He Might Have Proved A Useful Adjunct, If Not An Ornament To Society.
Society
Ornaments
Might
Gluttony And Surfeiting Are No Proper Occasions For Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving
Gluttony
Occasions
I Never Knew An Enemy To Puns Who Was Not An Ill-natured Man.
Men
Enemy
Pun
Oh, Breathe Not His Name! Let It Sleep In The Shade, Where Cold And Unhonour'd His Relics Are Laid
Sleep
Names
Shade
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
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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Men
Thinking
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.
Family
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Pieces
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
I Could Never Hate Anyone I Knew.
Hate
Shut Not Thy Purse-strings Always Against Painted Distress. Act A Charity Sometimes. When A Poor Creature (outwardly And Visibly Such) Comes Before Thee, Do Not Stay To Inquire Whether The "seven Small Children," In Whose Name He Implores Thy Assistance, Have A Veritable Existence. Rake Not Into The Bowels Of Unwelcome Truth, To Save A Halfpenny. It Is Good To Believe Him.
Children
Believe
Names
Trample Not On The Ruins Of A Man.
Men
Ruins
You Look Wise, Pray Correct That Error.
Wise
Errors
Looks
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
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.
Spurs
Might
Kind
The Muses Were Dumb While Apollo Lectured.
Silence
Dumb
Apollo
Merit, God Knows, Is Very Little Rewarded.
Littles
Merit
God Knows
Much Depends Upon When And Where You Read A Book. In The Five Or Six Impatient Minutes Before The Dinner Is Quite Ready, Who Would Think Of Taking Up The Faerie Queen For A Stopgap, Or A Volume Of Bishop Andrews's Sermons?
Queens
Book
Reading
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
Writing
Men
Cards Are War, In Disguise Of A Sport.
Sports
War
Games
In Every Thing That Relates To Science, I Am A Whole Encyclopaedia Behind The Rest Of The World.
Science
World
Behinds
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
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
The Light That Lies In Woman's Eyes.
Lying
Eye
Light
No Eye To Watch, And No Tongue To Wound Us, All Earth Forgot, And All Heaven Around Us.
Eye
Heaven
Watches
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
Books Think For Me. I Can Read Anything Which I Call A Book.
Book
Thinking
I Can Read
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
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
Sake
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
An Album Is A Garden, Not For Show Planted, But Use; Where Wholesome Herbs Should Grow.
Garden
Albums
Use
There Is A Pleasure In Affecting Affectation.
Pleasure
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
All, All Are Gone, The Old Familiar Faces.
Faces
Gone
Joyful
I Conceive Disgust At These Impertinent And Misbecoming Familiarities Inscribed Upon Your Ordinary Tombstone.
Tombstone
Ordinary
Disgusting
Mother's Love Grows By Giving.
Family
Mom
Mother
There Are Like To Be Short Graces Where The Devil Plays Host.
Play
Grace
Devil
The Vices Of Some Men Are Magnificent.
Men
Vices
Magnificent
Credulity Is The Man's Weakness, But The Child's Strength.
Strength
Children
Men
The World Meets Nobody Half Way.
Half
World
Way
Not Childhood Alone, But The Young Man Till Thirty, Never Feels Practically That He Is Mortal.
Men
Childhood
Fragility
Go Where Glory Waits Thee! But While Fame Elates Thee, Oh, Still Remember Me!
Waiting
Remember
Glory
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.
Business
Character
Men
Not Many Sounds In Life, And I Include All Urban And All Rural Sounds, Exceed In Interest A Knock At The Door.
Doors
Sound
Rural Life
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.
Dream
Names
Waiting
When True Hearts Lie Wither'd And Fond Ones Are Flown, Oh, Who Would Inhabit This Bleak World Alone?
Lying
Heart
World
All People Have Their Blind Side-their Superstitions.
People
Superstitions
Sides
What Have I Gained By Health? Intolerable Dullness. What By Mode Meals? A Total Blank.
Health
Meals
Blank
Clap An Extinguisher Upon Your Irony If You Are Unhappily Blessed With A Vein Of It.
Blessed
Veins
Irony
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
We Grow Gray In Our Spirit Long Before We Grow Gray In Our Hair.
Hair
Long
Age
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.
Book
Doe
Favour
His Voice Was The Most Obnoxious Squeak I Ever Was Tormented With.
Sarcastic
Voice
Obnoxious
A Laugh Is Worth A Hundred Groans In Any Market.
Laughter
Laughing
Hundred
She Unbent Her Mind Afterwards - Over A Book.
Book
Mind
If Thou Would'st Have Me Sing And Play As Once I Play'd And Sung, First Take This Time-worn Lute Away, And Bring One Freshly Strung.
Time
Play
Firsts
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
Anything Awful Makes Me Laugh. I Misbehaved Once At A Funeral.
Laughing
Funeral
Awful
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
Shut Not Thy Purse-strings Always Against Painted Distress.
Charity
Purses
Philanthropy
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
Teaching
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
Summer, As My Friend Coleridge Waggishly Writes, Has Set In With Its Usual Severity.
Summer
Writing
Usual
The Drinking Man Is Never Less Himself Than During His Sober Intervals.
Drinking
Men
Sober
Man, While He Loves, Is Never Quite Depraved.
Love
Men
Never Quit
I Am Determined That My Children Shall Be Brought Up In Their Father's Religion, If They Can Find Out What It Is.
Religious
Children
Father
It Is Well If The Good Man Himself Does Not Feel His Devotions A Little Clouded, Those Foggy Sensuous Steams Mingling With And Polluting The Pure Altar Surface.
Men
Good Man
Doe
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
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."
Business
Women
Two
Reader, If You Are Gifted With Nerves Like Mine, Aspire To Any Character But That Of A Wit.
Character
Nerves
Wit
No One Ever Regarded The First Of January With Indifference.
New Year
Time
Years
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
Apples
Opinion
Oft In The Stilly Night, Ere Slumber's Chain Has Bound Me, Fond Memory Brings The Light Of Other Days Around Me; The Smiles, The Tears, Of Boyhood's Years, The Words Of Love Then Spoken; The Eyes That Shone Now Dimmed And Gone, The Cheerful Hearts Now Broken.
Love
Memories
Heart
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
How Sickness Enlarges The Dimension Of A Man’s Self To Himself!
Cancer
Men
Self
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
Time Partially Reconciles Us To Anything. I Gradually Became Content--doggedly Contented, As Wild Animals In Cages.
Animal
Cages
Wild Animal
Farewell, Farewell To Thee, Araby's Daughter! Thus Warbled A Peri Beneath The Dark Sea.
Daughter
Farewell
Dark
The Trumpet Does Not More Stun You By Its Loudness, Than A Whisper Teases You By Its Provoking Inaudibility.
Doe
Tease
Trumpets
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
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!
Sweet
Time
Home
Let Us Live For The Beauty Of Our Own Reality.
Beauty
Reality
I Even Think That, Sentimentally, I Am Disposed To Harmony. But Organically I Am Incapable Of A Tune.
Music
Thinking
Tunes
Tis The Privilege Of Friendship To Talk Nonsense, And To Have Nonsense Respected.
Friendship
Inspiring
Funny Best Friend
Ay, Down To The Dust With Them, Slaves As They Are! From This Hour Let The Blood In Their Dastardly Veins, That Shrunk At The First Touch Of Liberty's War, Be Wasted For Tyrants, Or Stagnate In Chains.
War
Dust
Blood
Judge Not Man By His Outward Manifestation Of Faith; For Some There Are Who Tremblingly Reach Out Shaking Hands To The Guidance Of Faith; Others Who Stoutly Venture In The Dark Their Human Confidence, Their Leader, Which They Mistake For Faith; Some Whose Hope Totters Upon Crutches; Others Who Stalk Into Futurity Upon Stilts. The Difference Is Chiefly Constitutional With Them.
Faith
Mistake
Dark
A Garden Was The Primitive Prison, Till Man With Promethean Felicity And Boldness, Luckily Sinned Himself Out Of It.
Men
Garden
Evil
The Beggar Wears All Colors Fearing None.
Fear
Color
Beggar
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
As Half In Shade And Half In Sun This World Along Its Path Advances, May That Side The Sun 's Upon Be All That E'er Shall Meet Thy Glances!
Half
World
May
I Cannot Sit And Think; Books Think For Me.
Book
Reading
Thinking
There Was A Little Man, And He Had A Little Soul; And He Said, Little Soul, Let Us Try, Try, Try!
Men
Soul
Trying
A Clear Fire, A Clean Hearth, And The Rigour Of The Game.
Fire
Gambling
Games
Literature Is A Bad Crutch, But A Good Walking-stick.
Walking Sticks
Literature
Crutches
Satire Does Not Look Pretty Upon A Tombstone.
Tombstone
Doe
Looks
My Theory Is To Enjoy Life, But My Practice Is Against It.
Practice
Enjoy Life
Theory
A Man Cannot Have A Pure Mind Who Refuses Apple Dumplings.
Men
Apples
Mind
Damn The Age. I'll Write For Antiquity.
Writing
Age
Damn
Riddle Of Destiny, Who Can Show What Thy Short Visit Meant, Or Know What Thy Errand Here Below?
Destiny
Errands
Riddle
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
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
I Have Been Trying All My Life To Like Scotchmen, And Am Obliged To Desist From The Experiment In Despair.
Despair
Trying
Scottish
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
Presents, I Often Say, Endear Absents.
No Woman Dresses Below Herself From Mere Caprice.
Dresses
Caprice
Mere
In The Negro Countenance You Will Often Meet With Strong Traits Of Benignity. I Have Felt Yearnings Of Tenderness Towards Some Of These Faces.
Strong
Faces
Yearning
The Teller Of A Mirthful Tale Has Latitude Allowed Him. We Are Content With Less Than Absolute Truth.
Truth
Latitude And Longitude
Tales
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 Man Must Have A Rare Recipe For Melancholy, Who Can Be Dull In Fleet Street.
Men
Recipes
Dull
Whose Wit In The Combat, As Gentle As Bright, Ne'er Carried A Heart-stain Away On Its Blade.
Heart
Blades
Stains
Take All The Pleasures Of All The Spheres, And Multiply Each Through Endless Years,- One Minute Of Heaven Is Worth Them All.
Years
Heaven
Spheres
The True Poet Dreams Being Awake.
Dream
Poetry
Poet
The Most Mortifying Infirmity In Human Nature, To Feel In Ourselves, Or To Contemplate In Another, Is Perhaps Cowardice.
Anxiety
Human Nature
Cowardice
When I Consider How Little Of A Rarity Children Are -- That Every Street And Blind Alley Swarms With Them -- That The Poorest People Commonly Have Them In Most Abundance -- That There Are Few Marriages That Are Not Blest With At Least One Of These Bargains -- How Often They Turn Out Ill, And Defeat The Fond Hopes Of Their Parents, Taking To Vicious Courses, Which End In Poverty, Disgrace, The Gallows, Etc. -- I Cannot For My Life Tell What Cause For Pride There Can Possibly Be In Having Them.
Children
Pride
People
The Going Away Of Friends Does Not Make The Remainder More Precious. It Takes So Much From Them As There Was A Common Link. A. B. And C. Make A Party. A. Dies. B. Not Only Loses A. But All A.'s Part In C. C. Loses A.'s Part In B., And So The Alphabet Sickens By Subtraction Of Interchangeables.
Friends
Party
Going Away
I Hate A Man Who Swallows [his Food], Affecting Not To Know What He Is Eating. I Suspect His Taste In Higher Matters.
Hate
Men
Matter
The Truant Fancy Was A Wanderer Ever.
Fancy
Wanderers
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
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.
Rags
Dresses
Poverty
Brandy And Water Spoils Two Good Things.
Food
Two
Water
Since All The Maids Are Good And Lovable, From Whence Come The Bad Wives?
Women
Wife
Maids
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
Not If I Know Myself At All.
Knowledge
Knows
Ifs
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