Thomas de Quincey Quotes - Page 2

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• All parts of knowledge have their origin in metaphysics, and finally, perhaps, revolve into it.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Knowledge, Metaphysics

  Thomas De Quincey, James Thomas Fields (1854). “De Quincey's Writings: Essays on philosophical writers and other men of letters. 1854-60. [v. 14 stereotyped”, p.103

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• All men come into this world alone and leave it alone.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Men, Solitude, World

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• A great scholar, in the highest sense of the term, is not one who depends simply on an infinite memory, but also on an infinite and electrical power of combination; bringing together from the four winds, like the Angel of the Resurrection, what else were dust from dead men's bones, into the unity of breathing life.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Memories, Angel, Men

  Thomas De Quincey (1892). “Joan of Arc: And Other Selections from Thomas De Quincey. Joan of Arc. The English mail coach (abridged).. Levana and our ladies of sorrow. Dinner, real and reputed (abridged).. I.. II.. III.. IV.”

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

  Thomas de Quincey

  Numbers, Promise, Ratios

  Thomas De Quincey (2015). “The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater”, p.81, Sheba Blake Publishing

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

  Thomas de Quincey

  Keys, Drug, Paradise

  'Confessions of an English Opium Eater' (1822) pt. 2 'The Pleasures of Opium'

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

  Thomas de Quincey

  War, Men, Ineffable

  Thomas De Quincey (1863). “De Quincey's Works ...: Miscellanies: chiefly narrative”, p.286

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• 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.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Depressing, Art, Grief

  Thomas De Quincey (1862). “Confessions of an English Opium-eater: And, Suspiria de Profundis”, p.182

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• The pulpit style of Germany has been always rustically negligent, or bristling with pedantry.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Style, Germany, Pulpit

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• All is finite in the present; and even that finite is infinite in it velocity of flight towards death. But in God there is nothing finite...Upon a night of earthquake he builds a thousand years of pleasant habitations for man. Upon the sorrow of an infant he raises oftentimes from human intellects glorious vintages that could not else have been.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Night, Men, Years

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• 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.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Children, Oxford, Tears

  'Confessions of an English Opium Eater' (1822) pt. 1

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• Enough if every age produce two or three critics of this esoteric class, with here and there a reader to understand them.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Class, Two, Age

  Thomas De Quincey (1873). “The Works of Thomas De Quincey, "The English Opium Eater": Including All His Contributions to Periodical Literature”, p.237

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• The whole body of the arts and sciences composes one vast machinery for the irritation and development of the human intellect.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Art, Irritation, Development

  Thomas De Quincey, James Thomas Fields (1854). “De Quincey's Writings: Theological essays and other papers. 1854”, p.94

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

  Thomas de Quincey

  Children, Hate, Grief

  Thomas De Quincey, Grevel Lindop (1998). “The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater: And Other Writings”, p.103, Oxford Paperbacks

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• Kings should disdain to die, and only disappear.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Kings, Disappear, Should

  Thomas De Quincey (1826). “Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. By T. De Quincey”, p.90

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

  Thomas de Quincey

  Feet, Mathematics, Metaphysical

  Thomas De Quincey, James Thomas Fields (1854). “De Quincey's Writings: Essays on philosophical writers and other men of letters. 1854-60. [v. 14 stereotyped”, p.103

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• 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.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Moving, Literature, Firsts

  Thomas De Quincey (1862). “Leaders in literature”, p.5

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

  Thomas de Quincey

  Empires, Ruins, Expeditions

  Autograph letter from De Quincey addressed to J.A. Hessey, December 3, 1823.

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• Flowers... that are so pathetic in their beauty, frail as the clouds, and in their coloring as gorgeous as the heavens, had through thousands of years been the heritage of children - honored as the jewelry 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.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Children, Flower, Clouds

  "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater". Book by Thomas de Quincey, 1821.

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• The burden of the incommunicable.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Burden

  'Confessions of an English Opium Eater' (1822) pt. 1

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• 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.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Dust, Feet, Poetry

  Thomas De Quincey (1853). “Essays on the Poets: And Other English Writers”, p.12, Boston, Ticknor, Reed, and Fields

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• Often one's dear friend talks something which one scruples to call rigmarole.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Scruples, Dear Friend, Dear

  Thomas De Quincey, James Thomas Fields (1859). “De Quincey's Writings: Historical and critical essays. 1853”, p.278

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• 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.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Sunday, Afternoon, Earth

  'Confessions of an English Opium Eater' (1822) pt. 2 'The Pleasures of Opium'

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• Fierce sectarianism breeds fierce latitudinarianism.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Fierce, Sectarianism

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• 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.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Sacrifice, Men, Self

  Thomas De Quincey (1854). “De Quincey's works”, p.125

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• The science of style as an organ of thought, of style in relation to the ideas and feelings, might be called the organology of style.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Ideas, Feelings, Style

  Thomas De Quincey (1861). “Letters on Self-Education, with hints on style, and dialogues on political economy”, p.201

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