Charles Lamb
Charles Lamb
Charles Lambwas an English writer and essayist, best known for his Essays of Elia and for the children's book Tales from Shakespeare, which he produced with his sister, Mary Lamb...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionChildren's Author
Date of Birth10 February 1775
tombstone looks doe
Satire does not look pretty upon a tombstone.
children believe names
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.
kings eye men
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.
observation truism commonplace
Every commonplace or trite observation is not a truism.
sarcastic voice obnoxious
His voice was the most obnoxious squeak I ever was tormented with.
dream mad fancy
Dream not ... of having tasted all the grandeur and wildness of fancy till you have gone mad!
men good-man doe
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.
sweet children bears
I know that a sweet child is the sweetest thing in nature, not even excepting the delicate creatures which bear them.
family shadow pieces
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.
use
A laxity pervades the popular use of words.
children parent serious
A child's nature is too serious a thing to admit of its being regarded as a mere appendage to another being.
eye heaven black
A Persian's heaven is eas'ly made: 'T is but black eyes and lemonade.
character nerves wit
Reader, if you are gifted with nerves like mine, aspire to any character but that of a wit.
friends party going-away
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.