Charles Lamb
Charles Lamb
Charles Lambwas an English writer and essayist, best known for his Essays of Elia and for the children's book Tales from Shakespeare, which he produced with his sister, Mary Lamb...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionChildren's Author
Date of Birth10 February 1775
education teacher teaching
Why are we never quite at ease in the presence of a schoolmaster? Because we are conscious that he is not quite at his ease in ours. He is awkward, and out of place in the society of his equals. He comes like Gulliver from among his little people, and he cannot fit the stature of his understanding to yours.
children pride people
When I consider how little of a rarity children are -- that every street and blind alley swarms with them -- that the poorest people commonly have them in most abundance -- that there are few marriages that are not blest with at least one of these bargains -- how often they turn out ill, and defeat the fond hopes of their parents, taking to vicious courses, which end in poverty, disgrace, the gallows, etc. -- I cannot for my life tell what cause for pride there can possibly be in having them.
perfection matter pounds
He who hath not a dram of folly in his mixture hath pounds of much worse matter in his composition.
society might ornaments
He might have proved a useful adjunct, if not an ornament to society.
book reading originality
He has left off reading altogether, to the great improvement of his originality.
bravery might tongue
Oh for a tongue to curse the slave Whose treason, like a deadly blight, Comes o'er the councils of the brave, And blasts them in their hour of might!
pockets painful deny
Tis unpleasant to meet a beggar. It is painful to deny him; and, if you relieve him, it is so much out of your pocket.
thank-you christmas gratitude
Some people have a knack of putting upon you gifts of no real value, to engage you to substantial gratitude. We thank them for nothing.
understanding mind topics
This is the magnanimity of authorship, when a writer having a topic presented to him, fruitful of beauties for common minds, waives his privilege, and trusts to the judicious few for understanding the reason of his abstinence.
hypocrisy being-thankful add
To be thankful for what we grasp exceeding our proportion is to add hypocrisy to injustice.
children heart childhood
Is the world all grown up? Is childhood dead? Or is there not in the bosom of the wisest and the best some of the child's heart left, to respond to its earliest enchantments?
garden simplicity poetry
I allow no hot-beds in the gardens of Parnassus.
garden use herbs
An album is a garden, not for show Planted, but use; where wholesome herbs should grow.
poverty suits rags
Rags, which are the reproach of poverty, are the beggar's robes, and graceful insignia of his profession, his tenure, his full dress, the suit in which he is expected to show himself in public.