372 Quotes by Charles Lamb

The beggar is the only person in the universe not obliged to study appearance.

In the gradual desuetude of old observances, this custom of solemnizing our proper birth-day hath nearly passed away, or is left to children, who reflect nothing at all about the matter, nor understand any thing in it beyond cake and orange.

Ceremony is an invention to take off the uneasy feeling which we derive from knowing ourselves to be less the object of love and esteem with a fellow creature than some other person is. It endeavours to make up, by superior attentions in little points, for that invidious preference which it is forced to deny in the greater.

Did I hear the church-clock a few minutes ago, I was asked, and I answered, I hardly did know,but I thought that I heard it strike three.

Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment.

We are ashamed at the sight of a monkey. Somehow as we are shy of poor relations.

I always arrive late at the office but I make up for it by leaving early.

The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth and to have it found out by accident.

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.