85 quotes
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.
Old Familiar Faces (1798)
Riddle of destiny, who can show
What thy short visit meant, or know
What thy errand here below?
On an Infant Dying as Soon as Born (1827)
The red-letter days, now become, to all intents and purposes, dead-letter days.
Essays of Elia (1823)
A pun is a pistol let off at the ear; not a feather to tickle the intellect.
Last Essays of Elia (1833)
Presents, I often say, endear absents.
Essays of Elia (1823)
I have been trying all my life to like Scotchmen, and am obliged to desist from the experiment in despair.
Essays of Elia (1823)
The man must have a rare recipe for melancholy, who can be dull in Fleet Street.
And half had staggered that stout Stagirite.
It is good to love the unknown.
Essays of Elia (1823)
Separate from the pleasure of your company, I don't much care if I never see a mountain in my life.
Nay, rather,
Plant divine, of rarest virtue;
Blisters on the tongue would hurt you.
A Farewell to Tobacco (1805)
He is no lawyer who cannot take two sides.
I have something more to do than to feel.
I even think that, sentimentally, I am disposed to harmony. But organically I am incapable of a tune.
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.
Some sipping punch, some sipping tea,
But as you by their faces see
All silent and all damned.
An album is a garden, not for show
Planted, but use; where wholesome herbs should grow.
For God's sake (I never was more serious), don't make me ridiculous any more by terming me gentle-hearted in print.
Cultivate simplicity or rather should I say banish elaborateness, for simplicity springs spontaneous from the heart.
Letter to Coleridge (1790)
For thy sake, tobacco, I
Would do anything but die.
A Farewell to Tobacco (1805)