Charles Dickens quotes

‘NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life.

It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood, it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage.

‘Some persons hold,’ he pursued, still hesitating, ‘that there is a wisdom of the Head, and that there is a wisdom of the Heart.

People mutht be amuthed. They can’t be alwayth a learning, nor yet they can’t be alwayth a working, they an’t made for it.

‘How could you give me life, and take from me all the inappreciable things that raise it from the state of conscious death?

It is known, to the force of a single pound weight, what the engine will do; but, not all the calculators of the National Debt can tell me the capacity for good or evil, for love or hatred, for patriotism or discontent, for the decomposition of virtue into vice, or the reverse, at any single moment in the soul of one of these its quiet servants, with the composed faces and the regulated actions.

It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled.

When she was half a dozen years younger, Louisa had been overheard to begin a conversation with her brother one day, by saying ‘Tom, I wonder’—upon which Mr. Gradgrind, who was the person overhearing, stepped forth into the light and said, ‘Louisa, never wonder!’

You mutht have uth, Thquire. Do the withe thing and the kind thing too, and make the betht of uth; not the wurtht!’

The only difference between us and the professors of virtue or benevolence, or philanthropy—never mind the name—is, that we know it is all meaningless, and say so; while they know it equally and will never say so.’

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”

— Spoken by a character · XV. The Footsteps Die Out For Ever

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

— Spoken by a character · XIII. The Fellow of No Delicacy

I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out.

— Spoken by a character · XV. The Footsteps Die Out For Ever

And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire--a fire, however, inseparable in its nature from myself, quickening nothing, lighting nothing, doing no service, idly burning away.

— Spoken by a character · XIII. The Fellow of No Delicacy

A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.

“A multitude of people, and yet a solitude!” said Darnay, when they had listened for a while.

— Darnay · VI. Hundreds of People

Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule.

— Spoken by a character · XVI. Still Knitting

Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death;--the last, much the easiest to bestow, O Guillotine!

I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me.

— Spoken by a character · IV. Congratulatory

O Miss Manette, when the little picture of a happy father’s face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you!

— Spoken by a character · XIII. The Fellow of No Delicacy

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.

There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose.’

Barkis is willing.

My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest.

I think of every little trifle between me and Dora, and feel the truth, that trifles make the sum of life.

Some happy talent, and some fortunate opportunity, may form the two sides of the ladder on which some men mount, but the rounds of that ladder must be made of stuff to stand wear and tear; and there is no substitute for thorough-going, ardent, and sincere earnestness.

‘We must meet reverses boldly, and not suffer them to frighten us, my dear. We must learn to act the play out. We must live misfortune down, Trot!’

‘We have been very happy, my sweet Dora.’

‘Never,’ said my aunt, ‘be mean in anything; never be false; never be cruel. Avoid those three vices, Trot, and I can always be hopeful of you.’

Procrastination is the thief of time. Collar him!’

“Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There’s no better rule.”

— Spoken by a character · Chapter XL

I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.

Ask no questions, and you’ll be told no lies.

— Spoken by a character · Chapter II

And if you could say that to me then, you will not hesitate to say that to me now,—now, when suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but—I hope—into a better shape.

— Estella · Chapter LIX

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.

You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then.

— Spoken by a character · Chapter XLIV

My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.

Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil.

— Spoken by a character · Chapter XLIV

O God bless you, God forgive you!

— Spoken by a character · Chapter XLIV

It don’t signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is, ‘Get hold of portable property’.

— Spoken by a character · Chapter XXIV

London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall.

Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city.

The one great principle of the English law is to make business for itself.

Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, right reverends and wrong reverends of every order. Dead, men and women, born with heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around us every day.

We are not rich in the bank, but we have always prospered, and we have quite enough.

I have a great deal of difficulty in beginning to write my portion of these pages, for I know I am not clever.

It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations.

The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the muddy streets are muddiest near that leaden-headed old obstruction, appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old corporation, Temple Bar.

I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free. Mankind will surely not deny to Harold Skimpole what it concedes to the butterflies!

— Spoken by a character · VI. Quite at Home

I don’t feel any vulgar gratitude to you. I almost feel as if YOU ought to be grateful to ME for giving you the opportunity of enjoying the luxury of generosity.

— Spoken by a character · VI. Quite at Home

"God bless us every one!"

— Tiny Tim · Stave Three: THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS

And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!

Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.

Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

"Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"

— the Ghost · Stave One: MARLEY'S GHOST

I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future.

— Spoken by a character · Stave Four: THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS

"Bah!" said Scrooge. "Humbug!"

— Scrooge · Stave One: MARLEY'S GHOST

It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that, while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour.

Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunities misused! Yet such was I! Oh, such was I!

— Spoken by a character · Stave One: MARLEY'S GHOST

After awhile they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself.

Pride is one of the seven deadly sins; but it cannot be the pride of a mother in her children, for that is a compound of two cardinal virtues--faith and hope.

Mystery and disappointment are not absolutely indispensable to the growth of love, but they are, very often, its powerful auxiliaries.

There are many pleasant fictions of the law in constant operation, but there is not one so pleasant or practically humorous as that which supposes every man to be of equal value in its impartial eye, and the benefits of all laws to be equally attainable by all men, without the smallest reference to the furniture of their pockets.

He knew himself well, and choosing to imagine that all mankind were cast in the same mould, hated them; for, though no man hates himself, the coldest among us having too much self-love for that, yet most men unconsciously judge the world from themselves, and it will be very generally found that those who sneer habitually at human nature, and affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant samples.

‘The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.

Dreams are the bright creatures of poem and legend, who sport on earth in the night season, and melt away in the first beam of the sun, which lights grim care and stern reality on their daily pilgrimage through the world.

It was a harder day’s journey than yesterday’s, for there were long and weary hills to climb; and in journeys, as in life, it is a great deal easier to go down hill than up.

When I speak of home, I speak of the place where--in default of a better--those I love are gathered together; and if that place were a gypsy’s tent, or a barn, I should call it by the same good name notwithstanding.

Such is hope, Heaven’s own gift to struggling mortals; pervading, like some subtle essence from the skies, all things, both good and bad; as universal as death, and more infectious than disease!

‘You know, there is no language of vegetables, which converts a cucumber into a formal declaration of attachment.’

When a man bleeds inwardly, it is a dangerous thing for himself; but when he laughs inwardly, it bodes no good to other people.

‘It wasn’t the wine,’ murmured Mr. Snodgrass, in a broken voice. ‘It was the salmon.’

There are very few moments in a man’s existence when he experiences so much ludicrous distress, or meets with so little charitable commiseration, as when he is in pursuit of his own hat.

Man is but mortal; and there is a point beyond which human courage cannot extend.

Mr. Pickwick was a philosopher, but philosophers are only men in armour, after all.

Mr. Weller’s knowledge of London was extensive and peculiar.

‘“Can I view thee panting, lying On thy stomach, without sighing; Can I unmoved see thee dying On a log Expiring frog!”’

If I have done but little good, I trust I have done less harm, and that none of my adventures will be other than a source of amusing and pleasant recollection to me in the decline of life.

It is the fate of most men who mingle with the world, and attain even the prime of life, to make many real friends, and lose them in the course of nature. It is the fate of all authors or chroniclers to create imaginary friends, and lose them in the course of art.

“Please, sir, I want some more.”

— Spoken by a character · II. TREATS OF OLIVER TWIST’S GROWTH, EDUCATION, AND BOARD

the law is a ass—a idiot.

— Spoken by a character · LI. AFFORDING AN EXPLANATION OF MORE MYSTERIES THAN ONE, AND COMPREHENDING A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE WITH NO WORD OF SETTLEMENT OR PIN-MONEY

There is a passion for hunting something deeply implanted in the human breast.

“What a fine thing capital punishment is! Dead men never repent; dead men never bring awkward stories to light. Ah, it’s a fine thing for the trade! Five of ’em strung up in a row, and none left to play booty, or turn white-livered!”

— Spoken by a character · VIII. OLIVER WALKS TO LONDON. HE ENCOUNTERS ON THE ROAD A STRANGE SORT OF YOUNG GENTLEMAN

Dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine.

“It opens the lungs, washes the countenance, exercises the eyes, and softens down the temper,” said Mr. Bumble. “So cry away.”

— Mr. Bumble · XXXVII. IN WHICH THE READER MAY PERCEIVE A CONTRAST, NOT UNCOMMON IN MATRIMONIAL CASES

“You shall read them, if you behave well,” said the old gentleman kindly; “and you will like that, better than looking at the outsides,—that is, some cases; because there are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.”

— Spoken by a character · VIII. OLIVER WALKS TO LONDON. HE ENCOUNTERS ON THE ROAD A STRANGE SORT OF YOUNG GENTLEMAN

“Some people are nobody’s enemies but their own, yer know.”

— Spoken by a character · XLIII. WHEREIN IS SHOWN HOW THE ARTFUL DODGER GOT INTO TROUBLE

it is because I think so much of warm and sensitive hearts, that I would spare them from being wounded.

— Mrs. Maylie · XXXIII. WHEREIN THE HAPPINESS OF OLIVER AND HIS FRIENDS, EXPERIENCES A SUDDEN CHECK

The sun—the bright sun, that brings back, not light alone, but new life, and hope, and freshness to man—burst upon the crowded city in clear and radiant glory. Through costly-coloured glass and paper-mended window, through cathedral dome and rotten crevice, it shed its equal ray.

‘If the law supposes that,’ said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, ‘the law is a ass--a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience--by experience.’

“You know now, don’t you, that even a poor monotonous chorister and grinder of music—in his niche—may be troubled with some stray sort of ambition, aspiration, restlessness, dissatisfaction, what shall we call it?”

— Spoken by a character · II. A DEAN, AND A CHAPTER ALSO

I loved you madly; in the distasteful work of the day, in the wakeful misery of the night, girded by sordid realities, or wandering through Paradises and Hells of visions into which I rushed, carrying your image in my arms, I loved you madly.

— Spoken by a character · XIX. SHADOW ON THE SUN-DIAL

“How beautiful you are! You are more beautiful in anger than in repose. I don’t ask you for your love; give me yourself and your hatred; give me yourself and that pretty rage; give me yourself and that enchanting scorn; it will be enough for me.”

— Spoken by a character · XIX. SHADOW ON THE SUN-DIAL

Not only is the day waning, but the year.

Your life is not laid down to scale, and lined and dotted out for you, like a surveyor’s plan.

— Spoken by a character · II. A DEAN, AND A CHAPTER ALSO

I say she is sacrificed in being bestowed upon him. I say that I love her, and despise and hate him!

— Spoken by a character · X. SMOOTHING THE WAY

I wonder whether he ever so much as suspected that some one doted on her, at a hopeless, speechless distance, when he struck in and won her.

— Spoken by a character · XI. A PICTURE AND A RING

Eddy, let us be courageous. Let us change to brother and sister from this day forth.

— Spoken by a character · XIII. BOTH AT THEIR BEST

From that time, with occasional wild charges, like a wounded monster dying, it drops and sinks; and at full daylight it is dead.

“Am I so wicked in my thoughts as to conceive a wickedness that others cannot imagine?”

— Spoken by a character · XX. A FLIGHT

Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused!

— Spoken by a character · I. MARLEY'S GHOST

Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.

— the Spirit · III. THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS