Background Image
...
Wert Thou All That I Wish Thee, Great, Glorious, And Free, First Flower Of The Earth And First Gem Of The Sea.
-Charles Lamb
...
Please Wait....
Translating....

Wert Thou All That

Charles Lamb
...
Wert Thou All That I Wish Thee, Great, Glorious, And Free, First Flower Of The Earth And First Gem Of The Sea.

Understanding the Quote: "wert thou all that i wish thee, great, glorious, and free, first..."

This quote by Charles Lamb reflects deeply on the theme of flower. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Flower, Sea, Wish, 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 flower and sea. 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.

Views: 11
Topic
Flower
Sea
Wish
More From Charles Lamb
A Man Cannot Have A Pure Mind Who Refuses Apple Dumplings.
Men
Apples
Mind
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
The Muses Were Dumb While Apollo Lectured.
Silence
Dumb
Apollo
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 Sweet Child Is The Sweetest Thing In Nature.
Sweet
Children
Sweetest
Beholding Heaven, And Feeling Hell.
Heaven
Feelings
Hell
If There Be A Regal Solitude, It Is A Sick-bed. How The Patient Lords It There!
Sick
Solitude
Bed
Oh, Breathe Not His Name! Let It Sleep In The Shade, Where Cold And Unhonour'd His Relics Are Laid
Sleep
Names
Shade
Nothing Puzzles Me More Than Time And Space; And Yet Nothing Troubles Me Less, As I Never Think About Them.
Time
Science
Thinking
You Look Wise, Pray Correct That Error.
Wise
Errors
Looks
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
Time Partially Reconciles Us To Anything. I Gradually Became Content--doggedly Contented, As Wild Animals In Cages.
Animal
Cages
Wild Animal
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
To Be Sick Is To Enjoy Monarchical Prerogatives.
Sick
Enjoy
Prerogative
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
Gluttony And Surfeiting Are No Proper Occasions For Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving
Gluttony
Occasions
'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
Tis The Privilege Of Friendship To Talk Nonsense, And To Have Nonsense Respected.
Friendship
Inspiring
Funny Best Friend
The Light That Lies In Woman's Eyes.
Lying
Eye
Light
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
Satire Does Not Look Pretty Upon A Tombstone.
Tombstone
Doe
Looks
There Was A Little Man, And He Had A Little Soul; And He Said, Little Soul, Let Us Try, Try, Try!
Men
Soul
Trying
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
No One Ever Regarded The First Of January With Indifference.
New Year
Time
Years
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
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
There Are Like To Be Short Graces Where The Devil Plays Host.
Play
Grace
Devil
The True Poet Dreams Being Awake.
Dream
Poetry
Poet
Cards Are War, In Disguise Of A Sport.
Sports
War
Games
English Physicians Kill You, The French Let You Die.
Physicians
Dies
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
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
I Toiled After It, Sir, As Some Men Toil After Virtue.
Men
Smoking
Toil
My Motto Is: Contented With Little, Yet Wishing For More.
Wish
Contentment
Littles
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
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
Pain
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
His Voice Was The Most Obnoxious Squeak I Ever Was Tormented With.
Sarcastic
Voice
Obnoxious
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
Cultivate Simplicity Or Rather Should I Say Banish Elaborateness, For Simplicity Springs Spontaneous From The Heart.
Spring
Heart
Simplicity
We Grow Gray In Our Spirit Long Before We Grow Gray In Our Hair.
Hair
Long
Age
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
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
Books Which Are No Books.
Book
In Every Thing That Relates To Science, I Am A Whole Encyclopaedia Behind The Rest Of The World.
Science
World
Behinds
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
In The Indications Of Female Poverty There Can Be No Disguise. No Woman Dresses Below Herself From Caprice.
Dresses
Female
Poverty
Opinions Is A Species Of Property - I Am Always Desirous Of Sharing.
Opinion
Species
Property
A Laxity Pervades The Popular Use Of Words.
Use
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
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
It Is Good To Have Friends At Court.
Friends
Court
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
Half As Sober As A Judge.
Judging
Half
Sober
The Teller Of A Mirthful Tale Has Latitude Allowed Him. We Are Content With Less Than Absolute Truth.
Truth
Latitude And Longitude
Tales
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.
Knowledge
Men
Acquisition
He Has Left Off Reading Altogether, To The Great Improvement Of His Originality.
Book
Reading
Originality
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
I Even Think That, Sentimentally, I Am Disposed To Harmony. But Organically I Am Incapable Of A Tune.
Music
Thinking
Tunes
He Is No Lawyer Who Cannot Take Two Sides.
Law
Two Sides
Feet
Reader, If You Are Gifted With Nerves Like Mine, Aspire To Any Character But That Of A Wit.
Character
Nerves
Wit
Oh, The Pleasure Of Eating My Dinner Alone!
Dining Alone
Dinner
Eating
An Album Is A Garden, Not For Show Planted, But Use; Where Wholesome Herbs Should Grow.
Garden
Albums
Use
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
A Laugh Is Worth A Hundred Groans In Any Market.
Laughter
Laughing
Hundred
Cultivate Simplicity, Coleridge.
Simplicity
A Man Can Never Have Too Much Time To Himself, Nor Too Little To Do. Had I A Little Son, I Would Christen Him Nothing-to-do; He Should Do Nothing. Man, I Verily Believe, Is Out Of His Element As Long As He Is Operative. I Am Altogether For The Life Contemplative.
Believe
Son
Men
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
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 World Meets Nobody Half Way.
Half
World
Way
A Babe Is Fed With Milk And Praise.
Childhood
Milk
Praise
Anything Awful Makes Me Laugh. I Misbehaved Once At A Funeral.
Laughing
Funeral
Awful
Brandy And Water Spoils Two Good Things.
Food
Two
Water
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
Farewell, Farewell To Thee, Araby's Daughter! Thus Warbled A Peri Beneath The Dark Sea.
Daughter
Farewell
Dark
What Have I Gained By Health? Intolerable Dullness. What By Mode Meals? A Total Blank.
Health
Meals
Blank
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
My Only Books Were Woman's Looks,- And Folly 's All They 've Taught Me.
Book
Looks
Taught
Man, While He Loves, Is Never Quite Depraved.
Love
Men
Never Quit
For Thy Sake, Tobacco, I Would Do Anything But Die.
Smoking
Sake
Tobacco
This Is The Magnanimity Of Authorship, When A Writer Having A Topic Presented To Him, Fruitful Of Beauties For Common Minds, Waives His Privilege, And Trusts To The Judicious Few For Understanding The Reason Of His Abstinence.
Understanding
Mind
Topics
Man Is A Gaming Animal.
Animal
Men
Gambling
Friend Of My Bosom, Thou More Than A Brother, Why Wert Thou Not Born In My Father's Dwelling?
Cousin
Brother
Father
Go Where Glory Waits Thee! But While Fame Elates Thee, Oh, Still Remember Me!
Waiting
Remember
Glory
The Measure Of Choosing Well, Is, Whether A Man Likes And Finds Good In What He Has Chosen.
Men
Likes
Wells
Boys Are Capital Fellows In Their Own Way, Among Their Mates; But They Are Unwholesome Companions For Grown People.
Boys
People
Way
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 Could Never Hate Anyone I Knew.
Hate
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
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
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
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
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
I Have Something More To Do Than To Feel.
Feels
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
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
Oh Call It By Some Better Name, For Friendship Sounds Too Cold.
Friendship
Names
Sound
The Vices Of Some Men Are Magnificent.
Men
Vices
Magnificent
Since All The Maids Are Good And Lovable, From Whence Come The Bad Wives?
Women
Wife
Maids
New Year's Day Is Every Man's Birthday.
Birthday
New Year
Holiday
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
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
I Cannot Sit And Think; Books Think For Me.
Book
Reading
Thinking
The Red-letter Days, Now Become, To All Intents And Purposes, Dead-letter Days.
Purpose
Letters
Festivals
I Never Knew An Enemy To Puns Who Was Not An Ill-natured Man.
Men
Enemy
Pun
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
I Conceive Disgust At These Impertinent And Misbecoming Familiarities Inscribed Upon Your Ordinary Tombstone.
Tombstone
Ordinary
Disgusting
Merit, God Knows, Is Very Little Rewarded.
Littles
Merit
God Knows
We Are Nothing; Less Than Nothing, And Dreams. We Are Only What Might Have Been.
Dream
Might
Lethe
No Eye To Watch, And No Tongue To Wound Us, All Earth Forgot, And All Heaven Around Us.
Eye
Heaven
Watches
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
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
Alas! How Light A Cause May Move Dissension Between Hearts That Love! Hearts That The World In Vain Had Tried, And Sorrow But More Closely Tied; That Stood The Storm When Waves Were Rough, Yet In A Sunny Hour Fall Off, Like Ships That Have Gone Down At Sea When Heaven Was All Tranquillity.
Love
Moving
Fall
My Theory Is To Enjoy Life, But My Practice Is Against It.
Practice
Enjoy Life
Theory
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
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
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
The Man Must Have A Rare Recipe For Melancholy, Who Can Be Dull In Fleet Street.
Men
Recipes
Dull
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
When I Am Not Walking, I Am Reading. I Cannot Sit And Think.
Reading
Thinking
Walking
Positively, The Best Thing A Man Can Have To Do, Is Nothing, And Next To That Perhaps — Good Works.
Men
Next
Good Work
I Have Been Trying All My Life To Like Scotchmen, And Am Obliged To Desist From The Experiment In Despair.
Despair
Trying
Scottish
No Woman Dresses Below Herself From Mere Caprice.
Dresses
Caprice
Mere
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
By Myself Walking, To Myself Talking.
Talking
Walking
Every Commonplace Or Trite Observation Is Not A Truism.
Observation
Truism
Commonplace
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
Holiday
Boys
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
Newspapers Always Excite Curiosity. No One Ever Puts One Down Without The Feeling Of Disappointment.
Disappointment
Feelings
Curiosity
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
Literature Is A Bad Crutch, But A Good Walking-stick.
Walking Sticks
Literature
Crutches
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
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
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
Law
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
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!
Tombstone
Moving
Men
I'd Like To Grow Very Old As Slowly As Possible.
Age
Aging
Grows
(the Pig) Hath A Fair Sepulchre In The Grateful Stomach Of The Judicious Epicure - And For Such A Tomb Might Be Content To Die.
Grateful
Pigs
Might
While Childhood, And While Dreams, Producing Childhood, Shall Be Left, Imagination Shall Not Have Spread Her Holy Wings Totally To Fly The Earth.
Dream
Children
Wings
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
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
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
Clap An Extinguisher Upon Your Irony If You Are Unhappily Blessed With A Vein Of It.
Blessed
Veins
Irony
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
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
Whose Wit In The Combat, As Gentle As Bright, Ne'er Carried A Heart-stain Away On Its Blade.
Heart
Blades
Stains
Credulity Is The Man's Weakness, But The Child's Strength.
Strength
Children
Men
All People Have Their Blind Side-their Superstitions.
People
Superstitions
Sides
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
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
Pain Is Life - The Sharper, The More Evidence Of Life.
Life
Pain
Evidence
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
All, All Are Gone, The Old Familiar Faces.
Faces
Gone
Joyful
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
Of All Sound Of All Bells... Most Solemn And Touching Is The Peal Which Rings Out The Old Year.
New Year
Holiday
Years
Riddle Of Destiny, Who Can Show What Thy Short Visit Meant, Or Know What Thy Errand Here Below?
Destiny
Errands
Riddle
We Are Ashamed At The Sight Of A Monkey--somehow As We Are Shy Of Poor Relations.
Sight
Shy
Monkeys
I Know That A Sweet Child Is The Sweetest Thing In Nature, Not Even Excepting The Delicate Creatures Which Bear Them.
Sweet
Children
Bears
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
When Thus The Heart Is In A Vein Of Tender Thought, The Simplest Strain Can Touch It With Peculiar Power.
Heart
Power
Peculiar
Philanthropy, Like Charity, Must Begin At Home.
Home
Charity
Philanthropy
And The Tear That We Shed, Though In Secret It Rolls, Shall Long Keep His Memory Green In Our Souls.
Memories
Long
Soul
To Be Thankful For What We Grasp Exceeding Our Proportion Is To Add Hypocrisy To Injustice.
Hypocrisy
Being Thankful
Add
To Pile Up Honey Upon Sugar, And Sugar Upon Honey, To An Interminable Tedious Sweetness.
Sugar
Honey
Sweetness
A Clear Fire, A Clean Hearth, And The Rigour Of The Game.
Fire
Gambling
Games
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
Gone Before To That Unknown And Silent Shore.
Silence
Gone
Silent
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
I Ask And Wish Not To Appear More Beauteous, Rich Or Gay: Lord, Make Me Wiser Every Year, And Better Every Day.
Prayer
Gay
Years
How Sickness Enlarges The Dimension Of A Man’s Self To Himself!
Cancer
Men
Self
There Is A Pleasure In Affecting Affectation.
Pleasure
I Love To Lose Myself In Other Men's Minds.... Books Think For Me.
Book
Men
Thinking
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
No Work Is Worse Than Overwork; The Mind Preys On Itself,--the Most Unwholesome Of Food.
Work
Mind
Prey
You Do Not Play Then At Whist, Sir? Alas, What A Sad Old Age You Are Preparing For Yourself!
Play
Age
Cards
The Most Mortifying Infirmity In Human Nature, To Feel In Ourselves, Or To Contemplate In Another, Is Perhaps Cowardice.
Anxiety
Human Nature
Cowardice
He Might Have Proved A Useful Adjunct, If Not An Ornament To Society.
Society
Ornaments
Might
Not Childhood Alone, But The Young Man Till Thirty, Never Feels Practically That He Is Mortal.
Men
Childhood
Fragility
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
Riches Are Chiefly Good Because They Give Us Time.
Life
Success
Giving
I Am, In Plainer Words, A Bundle Of Prejudices - Made Up Of Likings And Dislikings.
Prejudice
Made
Bundles
If Dirt Were Trumps, What Hands You Would Hold!
Hands
Dirt
Trump
Thus, When The Lamp That Lighted The Traveller At First Goes Out, He Feels Awhile Benighted, And Looks Around In Fear And Doubt. But Soon, The Prospect Clearing, By Cloudless Starlight On He Treads, And Thinks No Lamp So Cheering As That Light Which Heaven Sheds.
Cheer
Fear
Thinking
I Am In Love With The Green Earth.
Nature
Garden
Earth
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
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
Our Spirits Grow Gray Before Our Hairs.
Hair
Enthusiasm
Spirit
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
I Always Arrive Late At The Office, But I Make Up For It By Leaving Early.
Funny
Hilarious
Witty
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
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 Trumpet Does Not More Stun You By Its Loudness, Than A Whisper Teases You By Its Provoking Inaudibility.
Doe
Tease
Trumpets
Your Absence Of Mind We Have Borne, Till Your Presence Of Body Came To Be Called In Question By It.
Mind
Body
Absence
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.
Lying
Men
Shining
The Only True Time Which A Man Can Properly Call His Own, Is That Which He Has All To Himself; The Rest, Though In Some Sense He May Be Said To Live It, Is Other People's Time, Not His.
Time
Men
People
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
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
Let Us Live For The Beauty Of Our Own Reality.
Beauty
Reality
In Some Respects The Better A Book Is, The Less It Demands From The Binding.
Book
Demand
Binding
How I Like To Be Liked, And What I Do To Be Liked!
Trending Author
Rickey Henderson
Ray Charles
Paula Danziger
Tony Iommi
Rick Danko
Ivan Goncharov
Category
Information