Thomas de Quincey Quotations

I feel that there is no such thing as ultimate forgetting; traces once impressed upon the memory are indestructible.

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

It is notorious that the memory strengthens as you lay burdens upon it, and becomes trustworthy as you trust it.

The laughter of girls is, and ever was, among the delightful sounds of earth.

No progressive knowledge will ever medicine that dread misgiving of a mysterious and pathless power given to words of a certain import.

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.

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.

Even imperfection itself may have its ideal or perfect state.

I stood checked for a moment - awe, not fear, fell upon me - and whist I stood, a solemn wind began to blow, the most mournful that ever ear heard. Mournful! That is saying nothing. It was a wind that had swept the fields of mortality for a hundred centuries.

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.