English essayist and critic (1775-1834)
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.
CHARLES LAMB
attributed, Day's Collacon
My theory is to enjoy life, but the practice is against it.
CHARLES LAMB
letter to William Wordsworth, Mar. 20, 1822
No woman dresses below herself from mere caprice.
CHARLES LAMB
attributed, Day's Collacon
Not many sounds in life, and I include all urban and rural sounds, exceed in interest a knock at the door.
CHARLES LAMB
"Valentine's Day", Essays of Elia
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.
CHARLES LAMB
"Grace Before Meat", Elia
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.
CHARLES LAMB
letter to William Wordsworth, Mar. 20, 1822
Time partially reconciles us to anything. I gradually became content--doggedly contented, as wild animals in cages.
CHARLES LAMB
"The Superannuated Man", Elia and The last essays of Elia