85 quotes
Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother,
Why wert not thou born in my father's dwelling?
I love to lose myself in other men's minds.
When I am not walking, I am reading;
I cannot sit and think. Books think for me.
Books which are no books.
Last Essays of Elia (1833)
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.
The flouting infidel doth mock when Christians cry
Not if I know myself at all.
The truant Fancy was a wanderer ever.
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.
A Farewell to Tobacco (1805)
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.
Last Essays of Elia (1833)
Some cry up Haydn, some Mozart,
Just as the whim bites. For my part,
I do not care a farthing candle
For either of them, nor for Handel.
Letter to Mrs. William Hazlitt (1830)
A Pun is a Noble Thing per se: O never lug it in as an accessory. A Pun is a sole object for reflection (vide my aids to that recessment from a savage state)—it is entire, it fills the mind: it is perfect as a Sonnet, better.
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.
Suck, baby! suck! mother's love grows by giving:
Drain the sweet founts that only thrive by wasting!
Black manhood comes when riotous guilty living
Hands thee the cup that shall be death in tasting.
Hail to thy returning festival, old Bishop Valentine! Great is thy name in the rubric, Thou venerable arch flamen of Hymen. * * * Like unto thee, assuredly, there is no other mitred father in the calendar.
Each day used to be individually felt by me in its reference to the foreign post days; in its distance from, or propinquity to, the next Sunday. I had my Wednesday feelings, my Saturday nights' sensations.
Last Essays of Elia (1833)
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.
Last Essays of Elia (1833)
[Of Coleridge] His face when he repeats his verses hath its ancient glory, an Archangel a little damaged.
Severe and saintly righteousness
Composed the clear white bridal dress;
Jesus, the Son of Heaven's high King
Bought with his blood the marriage ring
Call her Cockatrice and Siren,
Basilisk, and all that’s evil,
Witch, Hyena, Mermaid, Devil,
Ethiop, Wench, and Blackamoor,
Monkey, Ape, and twenty more
When I am not walking, I am reading
Last Essays of Elia (1833)