English essayist and critic (1775-1834)
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!
CHARLES LAMB
letter to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Oct. 23, 1802
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.
CHARLES LAMB
"Decay of Beggars", Elia
For I hate, yet love thee, so,
That, whichever thing I show,
The plain truth will seem to be
A constrained hyperbole,
And the passion to proceed
More from a mistress than a weed.
CHARLES LAMB
"A Farewell to Tobacco"
No woman dresses below herself from mere caprice.
CHARLES LAMB
attributed, Day's Collacon
Credulity is the man's weakness, but the child's strength.
CHARLES LAMB
"Witches and Other Night Fears", Essays of Elia
Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment.
CHARLES LAMB
"On Books and Reading", The Last Essays of Elia
He might have proved a useful adjunct, if not an ornament to society.
CHARLES LAMB
Captain Starkey