Charles Dickens Quotes

a most excellent man, though I could have wished his trousers not quite so tight in some places and not quite so loose in others.

I verily believe that her not remembering and not minding in the least, made me cry again, inwardly - and that is the sharpest crying of all.

We went our several ways," said Lady Dedlock, "and had little in common even before we agreed to differ. It is to be regretted, I suppose, but it could not be helped.

The secret was such an old one now, had so grown into me and become a part of myself, that I could not tear it away.

This is the even-handed dealing of the world!" he said. "There is noth-ing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes tocondemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!

We part with tender relations stretching far behind us, that never can be exactly renewed, and with others dawning - yet before us.

In a utilitarian age, of all other times, it is a matter of grave importance that fairy tales should be respe

I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul.

The most important thing in life is to stop saying 'I wish' and start saying 'I will.' Consider nothing impossible, then treat possiblities as probabilities.

Never say never

Some conjurers say that number three is the magic number, and some say number seven. It's neither my friend, neither. It's number one. (Fagin)

There is a wisdom of the head, and... there is a wisdom of the heart.

[T]he wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile.

So, I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.

In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice.

They ran their heads very hard against wrong ideas, and persisted in trying to fit the circumstances to the ideas instead of trying to extract ideas from the circumstances.

I have a pretty large experience of boys, and you're a bad set of fellows. Now mind!

He couldn't be a doctor, or he would have a quieter and more persuasive manner.

...and he glanced at the backs of the books, with an awakened curiosity that went below the binding. No one who can read, ever looks at a book, even unopened on a shelf, like one who cannot.

The Northern onslaught upon slavery was no more than a piece ofspecious humbug designed to conceal it's desire for economic control ofthe Southern states.

I think I know the delights of freedom

Company, you see - company is - is - it's a very different thing from solitude - an't it?

The miserable man was a man of that confined stolidity of mind that he could not discuss my prospects without having me before him.

She led me to believe we will going fast because her thoughts were going fast.

It was not because I had a strong sense of the virtue of industry, but because Joe had a strong sense of the virtue of industry, that I worked with tolerable zeal against the grain.

Be natural my children. For the writer that is natural has fulfilled all the rules of

There are only two styles of portrait painting: the serious and the smirk.

They looked at one another, and their hearts died within them.

I assumed my first undivided responsibility.

It is the most miserable thing to feel ashamed at home.

[Credit is a system whereby] a person who can't pay, gets another person who can't pay, to guarantee that he can pay.

Gold conjures up a mist about a man, more destructive of all his old senses and lulling to his feelings than the fumes of charcoal.

I must do something or I shall wear my heart away...

We went our several ways, " said Lady Dedlock, "and had little in common even before we agreed to differ. It is to be regretted, I suppose, but it could not be helped.

Old Barley might be as old as thee hills, and might swear like a whole field of troopers, but there were redeeming youth and trust and hope enough in Chinks's Basin to fill it to overflowing.

You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer, ” said Miss Pross, in her breathing. “Nevertheless, you shall not get the better of me. I am an Englishwoman.

It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas when the Great Creator was a child himself.

. . . for not an orphan in the wide world can be so deserted as the child who is an outcast from a living parent's love.

The life of Shakespeare is a fine mystery and I tremble every day lest something turn up.

This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy.

They had an ugly look to one as prone to disgust and fear as the changes of a few hours had made me.

...I hope that simple love and truth will be strong in the end. I hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil or misfortune in the world.

Ah me!" said he, "what might have been is not what is!

He saw the world more vividly than other people, and reacted to what he saw with laughter, horror, indignation, and sometimes sobs.

To have all those noble Romans alive before me, and walking in and out for my entertainment, instead of being the stern taskmasters they had been at school, was a most novel and delightful effect.

Somewhere embedded in every ordinary book are the five or six words for which really all the rest will be written.

A word in earnest is as good as a speech

When I went out, light of day seemed a darker color than when I went in.

Perhaps the prayer that is offered when the time for praying is over is more terribly pathetic than any other. Yet one might hesitate to say that this prayer was unanswered.("The Undying Thing")

Oh, let us love our occupations, Bless the squire and his relations, Live upon our daily rations, And always know our proper stations.