36 Thomas De Quincey Quotes

Thomas De Quincey quotes

1. Dyspepsy is the ruin of most things: empires, expeditions, and everything else.

2. If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once begun upon this downward path, you never know where you are to stop. Many a man has dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of at the time.

3. The burden of the incommunicable.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. Flowers ... that are so pathetic in their beauty, frail as the clouds, and in their colouring as gorgeous as the heavens, had through thousands of years been the heritage of children-honoured as the jewellery of God only by them-when suddenly the voice of Christianity, counter-signing the voice of infancy, raised them to a grandeur transcending the Hebrew throne, although founded by God himself, and pronounced Solomon in all his glory not to be arrayed like one of these.

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

9. 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.

10. Everlasting farewells! and again, and yet again reverberated-everlasting farewells!

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

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

1. Out of the ruined lodge and forgotten mansion, bowers that are trodden under foot, and pleasure-houses that are dust, the poet calls up a palingenesis.

2. It is most absurdly said, in popular language, of any man, that he is disguised in liquor; for, on the contrary, most men are disguised by sobriety.

3. Paint me an eternal tea-pot, for I usually drink tea from eight o'clock at night to four o'clock in the morning.

4. It is one of the misfortunes in life that one must read thousands of books only to discover that one need not have read them.

5. As is the inventor of murder, and the father of art, Cain must have been a man of first-rate genius.

6. Surely everyone is aware of the divine pleasures which attend a wintry fireside; candles at four o'clock, warm hearthrugs, tea, a fair tea-maker, shutters closed, curtains flowing in ample draperies to the floor, whilst the wind and rain are raging audibly without.

7. For tea, though ridiculed by those who are naturally coarse in their nervous sensibilities, or are become so from wine-drinking, and are not susceptible of influence from so refined a stimulant, will always be the favourite beverage of the intellectual.

8. Allow me to offer my congratulations on the truly admirable skill you have shown in keeping clear of the mark. Not to have hit once in so many trials, argues the most splendid talents for missing.

9. Even imperfection itself may have its ideal or perfect state.

10. Either the human being must suffer and struggle as the price of a more searching vision, or his gaze must be shallow and without intellectual revelation.

11. It is an impressive truth that sometimes in the very lowest forms of duty, less than which would rank a man as a villain, there is, nevertheless the sublimest ascent of self-sacrifice. To do less would class you as an object of eternal scorn, to do so much presumes the grandeur of heroism.

12. here was the secret of happiness, about which philosophers had disputed for so many ages, at once discovered; happiness might now be bought for a penny, and carried in the waistcoat-pocket; portable ecstasies might be had corked up in a pint-bottle; and peace of mind could be sent down by the mail.

13. There is a necessity for a regulating discipline of exercise that, whilst evoking the human energies, will not suffer them to be wasted.

14. Grief even in a child hates the light and shrinks from human eyes.

15. The peace of nature and of the innocent creatures of god seems to be secure and deep, only so long as the presence of man and his restless and unquiet spirit are not there to trouble its sanctity.

16. Mathematics has not a foot to stand upon which is not purely metaphysical.

17. Rightly it is said of utter, utter misery, that it 'cannot be remembered'; itself, being a rememberable thing, is swallowed up in its own chaos.

18. Grief! thou art classed amongst the depressing passions. And true it is that thou humblest to the dust, but also thou exaltest to the clouds. Thou shakest us with ague, but also thou steadiest like frost. Thou sickenest the heart, but also thou healest its infirmities.

19. There is first the literature of KNOWLEDGE, and secondly, the literature of POWER. The function of the first is -- to teach; the function of the second is -- to move.

20. Books, we are told, propose to instruct or to amuse. Indeed! A true antithesis to knowledge, in this case, is not pleasure, but power. All that is literature seeks to communicate power; all that is not literature, to communicate knowledge.

21. There is first the literature of knowledge, and secondly, the literature of power. The function of the first is--to teach; the function of the second is--to move, the first is a rudder, the second an oar or a sail. The first speaks to the mere discursive understanding; the second speaks ultimately, it may happen, to the higher understanding or reason, but always through affections of pleasure and sympathy.

22. If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination.

23. War has a deeper and more ineffable relation to hidden grandeurs in man than has yet been deciphered.

24. Fierce sectarianism breeds fierce latitudinarianism.