“I have been a meek son in the family of book-losers.” Self-deprecating admission of lending and losing many books · Essay, My Books Books Generosity Humour
“The very perusal of the backs is a discipline of humanity.” On the humanising influence of even scanning book titles · Essay, My Books Books Discipline Humanity
“How pleasant it is to reflect, that all those lovers of books have themselves become books!” Delighting in the transformation of book-lovers into lasting works · Essay, My Books Books Immortality Reflection
“I love an author the more for having been himself a lover of books.” Valuing fellow-feeling with writers who share the love of books · Essay, My Books Authors Books Sympathy
“The books I like to have about me most are Spenser, Chaucer, the minor poems of Milton, the Arabian Nights, Theocritus, Ariosto, and such old good-natured speculations as Plutarch’s Morals.” Listing the companionable works that form his ideal personal library · Essay, My Books Books Companionship Reading
“He brings poetry to our breakfast-table, and strikes light out of the pebble at our feet.” Characterising the everyday elevation of the ordinary in his writing · On his own essayistic approach Everyday Imagination Poetry
“I will take up in this paper any subject to which I feel an impulse.” Describing his spontaneous, impulse-driven method of essay writing · Wishing Cap Papers Essays Impulse Writing
“His very goods and chattels are didactic.” Observing how even ordinary objects in Hogarth’s work teach and moralise · On Hogarth Art Objects Teaching
“The long-lost voyager must have been like a person consecrated in all the quarters of heaven.” Imagining the weathered dignity of the long-absent traveller · Essay, Far Countries Character Imagination Travel
“By cultivating agreeable thoughts, then, we tend, like bodies in philosophy, to the greater mass of sensations, rather than the less.” On directing the mind toward the larger share of pleasant experience · Essay, On Death and Burial Optimism Pleasure Thought
“Nothing can be more idle than the voluntary gloom with which people think to please Heaven in certain matters.” Rejecting self-imposed misery as a form of piety · Essay, On Death and Burial Cheerfulness Gloom Piety
“The cultivation of pleasant associations is, next to health, the great secret of enjoyment.” Linking mental habits of association to lasting pleasure · Essay, On Death and Burial Associations Enjoyment Health
“Christmas is the glorious time of great Too-Much.” Affectionate celebration of festive excess and abundance · Essay or reflections on Christmas, The Seer Abundance Christmas Joy
“One of the best secrets of enjoyment is the art of cultivating pleasant associations.” On actively building agreeable mental connections for greater happiness · Essays Associations Enjoyment Happiness
“Beauty itself is a very poor thing unless beautified by sentiment.” On the necessity of feeling to elevate mere outward beauty · Essays Beauty Feeling Sentiment
“Some people say it is a very easy thing to get up of a cold morning. You have only, they tell you, to take the resolution; and the thing is done.” Humorous reflection on the gap between resolution and the comfort of bed · Essay, Getting Up on Cold Mornings, The Indicator (1820) Comfort Habit Humour
“It is part of your duty to enjoy what pleasures you can, not inconsistent with others’ welfare or your own.” On the moral duty of taking available pleasure amid worldly sorrows · Essay, Christmas Day (1830) Duty Joy Pleasure
“Taste is the very maker of judgment.” Asserting that cultivated taste forms and guides sound judgment · Essay on poetry and taste Criticism Judgement Taste
“What the poet has to cultivate above all things is love and truth;—what he has to avoid, like poison, is the fleeting and the false.” On the essential cultivation of sincerity and enduring qualities in poetry · Essay, An Answer to the Question, What Is Poetry? Love Poetry Truth
“Poetry, strictly and artistically so called, is the utterance of a passion for truth, beauty, and power, embodying and illustrating its conceptions by imagination and fancy.” Defining poetry as passionate expression of truth and beauty through imagination · Essay, An Answer to the Question, What Is Poetry? (1844) Beauty Imagination Poetry
“I do not care to be anywhere without having a book or books at hand.” On the constant companionship and comfort of books · Essay, My Books Books Comfort Companionship
“Life, upon the whole, is much more pleasurable than painful, otherwise we should not feel pain so impatiently when it comes.” Inferring the predominance of pleasure from our impatience with pain · Essays Life Pain Pleasure
“Some tears belong to us because we are unfortunate; others, because we are humane; many, because we are mortal. But most are caused by our being unwise.” Distinguishing the various sources of human tears · Essays on tears Humanity Tears Wisdom
“Where the mouth is sweet and the eyes intelligent, there is always the look of beauty, with a right heart.” Linking outward beauty to inner goodness and intelligence · Essays Beauty Character Heart
