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Quotes from Confessions of an English Opium-Eater — Thomas De Quincey

1785–1859 England

← All quotes by Thomas De Quincey

10 quotes

In many walks of life, a conscience is a more expensive encumbrance than a wife or a carriage.

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822)

A promise is binding in the inverse ratio of the numbers to whom it is made.

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822)

Thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh just, subtle, and mighty opium!

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822)

It was a Sunday afternoon, wet and cheerless; and a duller spectacle this earth of ours has not to show than a rainy Sunday in London.

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822)

Everlasting farewells! and again, and yet again reverberated—everlasting farewells!

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822)

Tea, though ridiculed by those who are naturally coarse in their nervous sensibilities … will always be the favourite beverage of the intellectual.

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822)

The burden of the incommunicable.

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822)

Cows are amongst the gentlest of breathing creatures; none show more passionate tenderness to their young when deprived of them; and, in short, I am not ashamed to profess a deep love for these quiet creatures.

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822)

So, then, Oxford Street, stonyhearted stepmother, thou that listenest to the sighs of orphans, and drinkest the tears of children, at length I was dismissed from thee.

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822)

Call for the grandest of all earthly spectacles, what is that? It is the sun going to his rest. Call for the grandest of all human sentiments, what is that? It is that man should forget his anger before he lies down to sleep.

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Thomas De Quincey (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.