Explore the most impactful and insightful quotes and sayings by Charles Dickens, and enrich your perspective with the wisdom. Share these inspiring Charles Dickens quotes pictures with your friends on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, or your personal blogs, completely free. Here are the top 1897 Charles Dickens quotes for you to read and share.
Here my sister, after a fit of clappings and screamings, beat her hands upon her bosom and upon her knees, and threw her cap off, and pulled her hair down - which were the last stages on her road to frenzy. Being by this time a perfect fury and a complete success, she made a dash to the door -- Charles Dickens
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. -- Charles Dickens
Throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things -- Charles Dickens
I am light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy -- Charles Dickens
It was no great gift, for there was mighty little wine left; but Signor Cavalletto, jumping to his feet, received the bottle gratefully, turned it upside down at his mouth, and smacked his lips. -- Charles Dickens
Can I view thee panting, lying On thy stomach, without sighing; Can I unmoved see thee dying On a log Expiring frog! -- Charles Dickens
She dotes on poetry, sir. She adores it; I may say that her whole soul and mind are wound up, and entwined with it. She has produced some delightful pieces, herself, sir. You may have met with her 'Ode to an Expiring Frog,' sir. -- Charles Dickens
Always the way!" muttered the Jew to himself as he turned homewards. "The worst of these women is, that a very little thing serves to call up some long-forgotten feeling; and the best of them is, that it never lasts. Ha! ha! -- Charles Dickens
It is anything you like best, my own,' she answered, laughing with glistening eyes and standing on tiptoe to kiss him, 'if you will only humour me when the fire burns up. -- Charles Dickens
Look round and round upon this bare bleak plain, and see even here, upon a winter's day, how beautiful the shadows are! Alas! It is the nature of their kind to be so. The loveliest things in life ... are but shadows; and they come and go, and change and fade away, as rapidly as these. -- Charles Dickens
Not knowing how he lost himself, or how he recovered himself, he may never feel certain of not losing himself again. -- Charles Dickens
Mrs. Southcott had recently attained her five-and-twentieth blessed birthday, of whom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements were made for the swallowing up of London -- Charles Dickens
At that favoured period, as at this. Mrs. Southcott had recently attained her five-and-twentieth blessed birthday, of whom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements -- Charles Dickens
I declare you're enough to make one regret ever having had a family at all. I have a great mind to say I wish I hadn't. Then what would you have done, I should like to know?' Mr. -- Charles Dickens
I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me. -- Charles Dickens
Many merry Christmases, many happy New Years. Unbroken friendships, great accumulations of cheerful recollections and affections on earth, and heaven for us all. -- Charles Dickens
" ... It is not my desire to wound the feelings of any person with whom I am connected in family bonds. I may be a hypocrite," said Mr. Pecksniff, cuttingly, "but I am not a brute." -- Charles Dickens
I'll tell you," said she, in the same hurried passionate whisper, "what real love it. It is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter - as I did! -- Charles Dickens
. . . and he had never yet, by so much as a single spoken word, disclosed to her the state of his heart. -- Charles Dickens
If you deserve it, and repent in action - not in words. I want no more words. -- Charles Dickens
The heavy bell of St. Paul's cathedral rang out, announcing the death of another day. -- Charles Dickens
Are tears the dewdrops of the heart? -- Charles Dickens
We think the feelings that are very serious in a man quite comical in a boy. -- Charles Dickens
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! -- Charles Dickens
Mrs. Sliderskew was in an ecstasy of delight, rolling her head about, drawing up her skinny shoulders, and wrinkling her cadaverous face into so many and such complicated forms of ugliness, as awakened the unbounded astonishment and disgust even of Mr. Squeers. -- Charles Dickens
Then it is your opinion ... that a man should never-"
-Invest in portable property in a friend?" ... "Certainly he should not. Unless he wants to get rid of the friend- and then it becomes a question how much portable property it may be worth to get rid of him. -- Charles Dickens
Ah, that 'if.' But it's of no use to despond. I can but do that, when I have tried everything and failed, and even then it won't serve me much. -- Charles Dickens
My heart is set, as firmly as ever heart of man was set on woman. I have no thought, no view, no hope, in life beyond her; and if you oppose me in this great stake, you take my peace and happiness in your hands, and cast them to the wind. -- Charles Dickens
Sir Leicester leans back in his chair, and breathlessly ejaculates, Good heaven! -- Charles Dickens
Of him; spectators in back rows stood up, not to miss a hair of him; people on the floor of the court, laid their hands on the shoulders of the people before them, to help themselves, at anybody's cost, to a view of him - -- Charles Dickens
Well, I'm sure I hope your health may be good, Louisa; for if your head begins to split as soon as you are married, which was the case with mine, I cannot consider that you are to be envied, though I have no doubt you think you are, as all girls do. -- Charles Dickens
"Why, what I may think after dinner," returns Mr. Jobling, "is one thing, my dear Guppy, and what I may think before dinner is another thing." -- Charles Dickens
Mr. Guppy suspects everybody ... of entertaining ... Sinister designs upon him ... he in the most ingenious manner takes infinite pains to counterplot, where there is no plot; and plays the deepest games of chess without any adversary -- Charles Dickens
Hunger stared down from the smokeless chimneys, and started up from the filthy street that had no offal, among its refuse, of anything to eat. Hunger was the inscription on the baker's shelves, written in every small loaf of his scanty stock of bad bread; -- Charles Dickens
It is said that every life has its roses and thorns; there seemed, however, to have been a misadventure or mistake in Stephen's case, whereby somebody else had become possessed of his roses, and he had become possessed of somebody else's thorns in addition to his own. -- Charles Dickens
But what I cannot settle in my mind is that the end will absolutely come. I hold her hand in mine, I hold her heart in mine, I see her love for me, alive in all its strength. -- Charles Dickens
Although a man may lose a sense of his own importance when he is a mere unit among a busy throng, all utterly regardless of him, it by no means follows that he can dispossess himself, with equal facility, of a very strong sense of the importance and magnitude of his cares. -- Charles Dickens
Try to do unto others as you would have them do to you, and do not be discouraged if they fail sometimes. It is much better that they should fail than you should. -- Charles Dickens
But when society is the name for such hollow gentlemen and ladies ... and when its breeding is professed indifference to everything that can advance or can retard mankind, I think we must have lost ourselves in that same Desert of Sahara, and had better find the way out. -- Charles Dickens
Dickens writes that an event, began to be forgotten, as most affairs are, when wonder, having no fresh food to support it, dies away of itself. -- Charles Dickens
By the way, whenever an Englishman would cry 'All right!' an American cries 'Go ahead!' which is somewhat expressive of the national character of the two countries. -- Charles Dickens
A commission of haberdashers could alone have reported what
the rest of her poor dress was made of, but it had a strong general
resemblance to seaweed, with here and there a gigantic tea-leaf.
Her shawl looked particularly like a tea-leaf after long infusion. -- Charles Dickens
The year end brings no greater pleasure then the opportunity to express to you season's greetings and good wishes. May your holidays and new year be filled with joy. -- Charles Dickens
Anything to vary this detestable monotony. -- Charles Dickens
Indeed, there was a frankness in his face, an honesty, and an undisguised show of his pride in her, and his love for her, which were, to me, the best of good looks. -- Charles Dickens
He cross-examined his very wine when he had nothing else at hand. -- Charles Dickens
Love was made on these occasions in the form of bracelets; -- Charles Dickens
A spirit that was once a man could hardly feel stranger or lonelier, going unrecognized among mankind, than I feel. -- Charles Dickens
[ ... ] There are tales among us that you have sold yourself to the devil, and I know not what.'
'We all have, have we not?' returned the stranger, looking up. 'If we were fewer in number, perhaps he would give better wages. -- Charles Dickens
"O' course I came to look arter you, my darlin'," replied Mr. Weller; for once permitting his passion to get the better of his veracity. -- Charles Dickens
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. -- Charles Dickens
they had a weazen little baby, with a heavy head that it couldn't hold up, and two weak staring eyes, with which it seemed to be always wondering why it had ever been born. It -- Charles Dickens
I can't go into a long explanation before company; but I couldn't help it, upon my honour."
Upon your what?" growled Sikes, with excessive disgust. "Here! Cut me off a piece of that pie, one of you boys,to take the taste of that out of my mouth, or it'll choke me dead. -- Charles Dickens
A law of the Suspected, which struck away all security for liberty or life, and delivered over any good and innocent person to any bad and guilty one; prisons gorged with people who had committed no offence, and could obtain no hearing; -- Charles Dickens
No vivacious Bacchanalian flame leaped out of the pressed grape of Monsieur Defarge: but, a smouldering fire that burnt in the dark lay hidden in the dregs of it. -- Charles Dickens
But, there is one broad sky over all the world, and whether it be blue or cloudy, the same heaven beyond -- Charles Dickens
Do not allow a trivial misunderstanding to wither the blossoms of spring, which, once put forth and blighted, cannot be renewed ... The gushing fountains which sparkle in the sun must not be stopped in mere caprice; the oasis in the desert of Sahara must not be plucked up idly. -- Charles Dickens
Give Pirrip as my father's family name, on the authority of his tombstone and my sister, - Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As -- Charles Dickens
For gracious sake, don't talk about Liberty; we have quite enough of that. -- Charles Dickens
There lives at least one being who can never change-one being who would be content to devote his whole existence to your happiness-who lives but in your eyes-who breathes but in your smiles-who bears the heavy burden of life itself only for you. -- Charles Dickens
Altogether, the Old Bailey, at that date, was a choice illustration of the precept, that "Whatever is right;" an aphorism that would be as final as it is lazy, did it not include the troublesome consequence, that nothing that ever was, was wrong. -- Charles Dickens
For I aint, you must know,' said Betty, 'much of a hand at reading writing-hand, though I can read my Bible and most print. And I do love a newspaper. You mightn't think it, but Sloppy is a beautiful reader of a newspaper. He do the Police in different voices. -- Charles Dickens
Let me persuade you then
oh, do let me persuade you," said the child, "to think no more of gains or losses, and to try no fortune but the fortune we pursue together. -- Charles Dickens
Good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a -- Charles Dickens
Throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was -- Charles Dickens
the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of -- Charles Dickens
large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer -- Charles Dickens
Even the blind men's dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, 'No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master! -- Charles Dickens
Upon my word and honour I seem to be fated, and destined, and ordained, to live in the midst of things that I am never to hear the last of. -- Charles Dickens
Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge -- Charles Dickens
Of all my old associations, of all my old pursuits and hopes, of all the living and the dead world, this one poor soul alone comes natural to me, and I am fit for. There is a tie of many suffering years between us two, and it is the only tie I ever had on earth that Chancery has not broken! -- Charles Dickens
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! -- Charles Dickens
When we came within sight of the sea, the waves on the horizon, caught at intervals above the rolling abyss, were like glimpses of another shore with towers and buildings. -- Charles Dickens
All is going on as it was wont. The waves are hoarse with repetition of their mystery; the dust lies piled upon the shore; the sea-birds soar and hover; the winds and clouds go forth upon their trackless flight; the white arms beckon, in the moonlight, to the invisible country far away. -- Charles Dickens
I. In Secret II. The Grindstone III. The Shadow IV. Calm in Storm -- Charles Dickens
Loves and Cupids took to flight afraid, and Martyrdom had no such torment in its painted history of suffering. -- Charles Dickens
Morning made a considerable difference in my general prospects of Life and brightened it so much that is scarcely seemed the same. -- Charles Dickens
Affery, like greater people, had always been right in her facts, and always wrong in the theories she deduced from them. -- Charles Dickens
bad lobster in a dark cellar. It -- Charles Dickens
The Shadow XI. Dusk XII. Darkness XIII. Fifty-two XIV. The Knitting Done XV. The Footsteps -- Charles Dickens
Why should I seek to change, what has been so precious to me for so long! you can never show better than as your own natural self -- Charles Dickens
The very stars to which I then raised my eyes, I am afraid I took to be but poor and humble stars for glittering on the rustic objects among which I had passed my life. -- Charles Dickens
Pride is not all of one kind. -- Charles Dickens
What is the matter?" asked the passenger, then, with mildly quavering speech. "Who wants me? Is it Jerry? -- Charles Dickens
On the motionless branches of some trees, autumn berries hung like clusters of coral beads, as in those fabled orchards where the fruits were jewels ... -- Charles Dickens
She cannot, therefore, go too fast from Paris. Weariness of soul lies before her, as it lies behind - her Ariel has put a girdle of it round the whole earth, and it cannot be unclasped - but the imperfect remedy is always to fly from the last place where it has been experienced. Fling -- Charles Dickens
Towards that small and ghostly hour, [Mr. Cruncher] rose up from his chair, took a key out of his pocket, opened a locked cupboard, and brought forth a sack, a crowbar of convenient size, a rope and chain, and other fishing tackle of that nature. -- Charles Dickens
And still I stood looking at the house, thinking how happy I should be if I lived there with her, and knowing that I never was happy with her, but always miserable. -- Charles Dickens
Why am I always at war with myself? Why have I told, as if upon compulsion, what I knew all along I ought to have withheld? Why am I making a friend of this woman beside me, in spite of the whispers against her that I hear in my heart? -- Charles Dickens
Spring is the time of year when it is summer in the sun and winter in the shade. -- Charles Dickens
The worst class of sum worked in the every-day world is cyphered by the diseased arithmeticians who are always in the rule of Subtraction as to the merits and successes of others, and never in Addition as to their own. -- Charles Dickens
How weak am I, that I could shed tears at this reception! I who have never experienced anything else; who have never expected anything else. -- Charles Dickens
At the great iron gate of the churchyard he stopped and looked in. He looked up at the high tower spectrally resisting the wind, and he looked round at the white tombstones, like enough to the dead in their winding-sheets, and he counted the nine tolls of the clock-bell. -- Charles Dickens
Boy, be for ever grateful to all friends, but especially unto them which brought you up by hand -- Charles Dickens
The English Crown and People, from a congress of British subjects in America: which, strange to relate, have proved more important to the human -- Charles Dickens
What is peace? Is it war? No. Is it strife? No. Is it lovely, and gentle, and beautiful, and pleasant, and serene, and joyful? O yes! -- Charles Dickens
If you can't get to be uncommon through going straight, you'll never get to do it through going crooked. [ ... ] live well and die happy. -- Charles Dickens
It's in vain, Trot, to recall the past, unless it works some influence upon the present. -- Charles Dickens
And Ralph always wound up these mental soliloquies by arriving at the conclusion, that there was nothing like money. -- Charles Dickens
In short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted -- Charles Dickens
Duty, Tattycoram. Begin it early, and do it well; and there is no antecedent to it, in any origin or station, that will tell against us with the Almighty, or with ourselves. -- Charles Dickens
But, in this separation I associate you only with the good and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you have done far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. -- Charles Dickens
Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to shake very much; and shaving requires attention, even when you don't dance while you are at it.
But if he had cut the end of his nose off, he would have put a piece of sticking-plaster over it, and been quite satisfied. -- Charles Dickens
The magic reel, which, rolling on before has led the chronicler thus far, now slackens its pace, and stops. It lies before the goal; the pursuit is at anend. -- Charles Dickens
When I went out, light of day seemed a darker color than when I went in. -- Charles Dickens
The world belongs to those who set out to conquer it armed with self confidence and good humour. -- Charles Dickens
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. -- Charles Dickens
Ah, rather overdone, M'Choakumchild. If he had only learnt a little less, how infinitely better he might have taught much more! He -- Charles Dickens
Eighteen years a secret and unaccused prisoner in the Bastille; -- Charles Dickens
Upon the trees. Though the earth was cold and wet, the sky was clear, and the sun rose bright, placid, and beautiful. Eighteen years! -- Charles Dickens
Let us take heed how we laugh without reason, lest we cry with it. -- Charles Dickens
You should keep dogs-fine animals-sagacious. -- Charles Dickens
And here you see me working out, as cheerfully and thankfully as I may, my doom of sharing in the glass a constant change of customers, and of lying down and rising up with the skeleton allotted to me for my mortal companion. -- Charles Dickens
It's not convenient," said Scrooge, "and it's not fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you'd think yourself ill-used, I'll be bound?" The clerk smiled faintly. "And yet," said Scrooge, "you don't think me ill-used, when I pay a day's wages for no -- Charles Dickens
Ten minutes, good, past eleven." "My blood!" ejaculated the vexed coachman, "and not atop of Shooter's yet! Tst! Yah! Get on with you!" The emphatic horse, cut short by the whip in a most decided negative, made a decided scramble for it, and the three other horses followed -- Charles Dickens
My blood!" ejaculated the vexed coachman, "and not atop of Shooter's yet! Tst! Yah! Get on with you!" The emphatic horse, cut short by the whip -- Charles Dickens
... Any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness! -- Charles Dickens
I admire machinery as much is any man, and am as thankful to it as any man can be for what it does for us. But it will never be a substitute for the face of a man, with his soul in it, encouraging another man to be brave and true. -- Charles Dickens
He comes here at the peril of his life, for the realization of his fixed idea. In the moment of realization, after all his toil and waiting, you cut the ground from under his feet, destroy his idea, and make his gains worthless to him. Do you see nothing that he might do, under the disappointment? -- Charles Dickens
Around and around the house the leaves fall thick, but never fast, for they come circling down with a dead lightness that is sombre and slow. -- Charles Dickens
His wardrobe was extensive-very extensive-not strictly classical perhaps, not quite new, nor did it contain any one garment made precisely after the fashion of any age or time, but everything was more or less spangled; and what can be prettier than spangles! -- Charles Dickens
I believe the power of observation in numbers of very young children to be quite wonderful for its closeness and accuracy. Indeed, -- Charles Dickens
And who among the company at Monseigneur's reception in that seventeen hundred and eightieth year of our Lord, could possibly doubt, that a system rooted in a frizzled hangman, powdered, gold-laced, pumped, and white-silk stockinged, would see the very stars out! -- Charles Dickens
The one great principle of English law is to make business for itself. -- Charles Dickens
The sergeant was describing a military life. It was all drinking, he said, except that there were frequent intervals of eating and love making. -- Charles Dickens
If a man would commit an inexpiable offence against any society, large or small, let him be successful. They will forgive any crime except that. -- Charles Dickens
Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. -- Charles Dickens
Nature forgot to shade him off, I think ... A little too boisterous
like the sea. A little too
vehement
like a bull who has made up his mind to consider every
colour scarlet. But I grant a sledge-hammering sort of merit in him! -- Charles Dickens
This scroll, majestic in its severe simplicity, illuminated a little slip of front garden abutting on the thirsty high-road, where a few of the dustiest of leaves hung their dismal heads and led a life of choking. -- Charles Dickens
Now, what I want is, Facts ... Facts alone are wanted in life. -- Charles Dickens
Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. -- Charles Dickens
If you find yourselves in cuttings or in tunnels, don't you play no secret games, Keep your whistles going, and let's know where you are. -- Charles Dickens
In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley. -- Charles Dickens
Yet it did seem (though not to him, for he saw nothing of it) as if fantastic hope could take as strong a hold as Fact. p. -- Charles Dickens
You have no idea what it is to have anybody wonderful fond of you, unless you have been got down and rolled upon by the lonely feelings that I have mentioned as having once got the better of me. -- Charles Dickens
It is a silent, shady place, with a paved courtyard so full of echoes, that sometimes I am tempted to believe that faint responses to the noises of old times linger there yet, and that these ghosts of sound haunt my footsteps as I pace it up and down. -- Charles Dickens
Earthly order of events had lately come to the English Crown and People, from a congress of British subjects in America: which, strange to relate, have proved more important -- Charles Dickens
I think I know the delights of freedom -- Charles Dickens
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. -- Charles Dickens
When the wind is blowing and the sleet or rain is driving against the dark windows, I love to sit by the fire, thinking of what I have read in books of voyage and travel. -- Charles Dickens
Then tell Wind and Fire where to stop," returned madame; "but don't tell me. -- Charles Dickens
We produced a bundle of pens, a copious supply of ink, and a goodly show of writing and blotting paper. For there was something very comfortable in having plenty of stationary. -- Charles Dickens
As Hamlet says, Hercules may lay about him with his club in every possible direction, but he can't prevent the cats from making a most intolerable row on the roofs of the houses, or the dogs from being shot in the hot weather if they run about the streets unmuzzled -- Charles Dickens
Everybody is, often, as likely to be wrong as right. In the general experience, everybody has been wrong so often, and it has taken in most instances such a weary while to find out how wrong, that the authority is proved to be fallible. -- Charles Dickens
The view, as I have said, is charming; but in the day you must keep the lattice-blinds close shut, or the sun would drive you mad; and when the sun goes down you must shut up all the windows, or the mosquitoes would tempt you to commit suicide. So -- Charles Dickens
Mr. Gabriel Parsons led the way to the house. He was a sugar-baker, who mistook rudeness for honesty, and abrupt bluntness for an open and candid manner; many besides Gabriel mistake bluntness for sincerity. -- Charles Dickens
If nothing worse than Ale happens to us, we are well off. -- Charles Dickens
That glorious vision of doing good is so often the sanguine mirage of so many good minds. -- Charles Dickens
Although to restless and ardent minds, morning may be the fitting season for exertion and activity, it is not always at that time that hope is strongest or the spirit most sanguine and buoyant. -- Charles Dickens
I know this messenger, guard," said Mr. Lorry, getting down into the road - assisted from behind more swiftly than politely by the other two passengers, who immediately scrambled into the coach, shut the door, and pulled up the window. "He may come close; there's nothing wrong. -- Charles Dickens
All the passengers are very dismal, and seem to have tremendous secrets weighing on their minds. There is no conversation, no laughter, no cheerfulness, no sociality, except in spitting; and that is done in silent fellowship round the stove, when the meal is over. -- Charles Dickens
It is a principle of his that no man who was not a true gentleman at heart, ever was, since the world began, a true gentleman in manner. He says, no varnish can hide the grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself. -- Charles Dickens
I never heerd ... nor read of nor see in picters, any angel in tights and gaiters ... but ... he's a reg'lar thoroughbred angel for all that. -- Charles Dickens
Polly put the kettle on, we'll all have tea. -- Charles Dickens
Think! I've got enough to do, and little enough to get for it, without thinking. -- Charles Dickens
Mrs Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her clenliness more umcomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to godliness, and some people do the same by their religion. -- Charles Dickens
The terrors that had assailed me whenever Mrs. Joe had gone near the pantry, or out of the room, were only to be equalled by the remorse with which my mind dwelt on what my hands had done. -- Charles Dickens
Looking towards the open window, I saw light wreaths from Joe's pipe floating there, and I fancied it was like a blessing from Joe, - not obtruded on me or paraded before me, but pervading the air we shared together. I put -- Charles Dickens
My dearest girl, dearer to me than anything in life, if you are unhappy, let me share your unhappiness. If you are in need of help or counsel, let me try to give it to you. If you have indeed a burden on your heart, let me try to lighten it. For whom do I live now, Agnes, if it is not for you! -- Charles Dickens
But she never was polite unless there was company. -- Charles Dickens
Her [Caddy] father released her, took out his pocket handkerchief, and sat down on the stairs with his head against the wall. I hope he found some consolation in walls. I almost think he did. -- Charles Dickens
it might prove to be worth, and no customers coming in to help him to any other, Mr. Barsad paid for what he had drunk, and took his leave: taking occasion to say, -- Charles Dickens
We were very happy; and that evening, as the last of its race, and destined evermore to close that volume of my life, will never pass out of my memory. -- Charles Dickens
The universe makes rather an indifferent parent, I'm afraid. -- Charles Dickens
But the woman who stood knitting looked up steadily, and looked the Marquis in the face. -- Charles Dickens
Things cannot be expected to turn up of themselves. We must in a measure assist to turn them up -- Charles Dickens
We walked round the ruined garden twice or thrice more, and it was all in bloom for me. If the green and yellow growth of weed in the chinks of the old wall had been the most precious flowers that ever blew, it could not have been more cherished in my remembrance. -- Charles Dickens
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. -- Charles Dickens
What a fine thing capital punishment is! Dead men never repent; dead men never bring awkward stories to light. The prospect of the gallows, too, makes them hardy and bold. Ah, it's a fine thing for the trade! Five of them strung up in a row, and none left to play booty or turn white-livered! -- Charles Dickens
said Mr. Toots, whose fervour of acquiescence was greatly heightened by his entire ignorance of the Captain's meaning. -- Charles Dickens
He was touched in the cavity where his heart should have been, in that nest of addled eggs, where the birds of heaven would have lived if they had not been whistled away, by the fervour of this reproach. -- Charles Dickens
I will not say that everything was utterly commonplace, becuase I doubt if anything can be that, except to utterly commonplace people - and there my vanity steps in ... -- Charles Dickens
I should be an affected women, if I made any pretence of being surprised by my son's inspiring such emotions; but I can't be indifferent to anyone who is so sensible on his merits -- Charles Dickens
My child, if I have any object in life, it is to provide for your being a good, a sensible, and a happy man. I am bent upon it. -- Charles Dickens
A silent look of affection and regard when all other eyes are turned coldly away-the consciousness that we possess the sympathy and affection of one being when all others have deserted us-is a hold, a stay, a comfort, in the deepest affliction, which no wealth could purchase, or power bestow. -- Charles Dickens
Contents Book the First - Recalled to Life I. The Period II. The Mail III. The Night Shadows -- Charles Dickens
And numerous indeed are the hearts to which Christmas brings a brief season of happiness and enjoyment. -- Charles Dickens
I shall be there before the commencement. -- Charles Dickens
In the moonlight which is always sad, as the light of the sun itself is
as the light called human life is
at its coming and its going. -- Charles Dickens
There is probably a smell of roasted chestnuts and other good comfortable things all the time, for we are telling Winter Stories - Ghost Stories, or more shame for us - round the Christmas fire; and we have never stirred, except to draw a little nearer to it. -- Charles Dickens
Doctor, they are very proud, these Nobles; but we common dogs are proud too, sometimes. They plunder us, outrage us, beat us, kill us; but we have a little pride left, sometimes. -- Charles Dickens
accepting his patronage as he accepted every incident of the labyrinthian world in which he had got lost. -- Charles Dickens
Man is but mortal; and there is a point beyond which human courage cannot extend. -- Charles Dickens
Alice!" said the visitor's mild voice, "am I late to-night?"
"You always seem late, but are always early. -- Charles Dickens
My Uriah,' said Mrs. Heep, 'has looked forward to this, sir, a long while. He had his fears that our umbleness stood in the way, and I joined in them myself. Umble we are, umble we have been, umble we shall ever be,' said Mrs. Heep. -- Charles Dickens
Your voice and music are the same to me. -- Charles Dickens
Mr. Snagsby, as a timid man, is accustomed to cough with a variety of expressions, and so to save words. -- Charles Dickens
It's the whole point of the thing, you know - that, and leaving the business to take care of itself, as it seems to have made up its mind not to take care of me. -- Charles Dickens
He didn't at all see why the busy bee should be proposed as a model to him; he supposed the Bee liked to make honey, or he wouldn't do it - nobody asked him. It was not necessary for the bee to make such a merit of his tastes. -- Charles Dickens
It being a remarkable fact in theatrical history, but one long since established beyond dispute, that it is a hopeless endeavor to attract people to a theatre unless they can be first brought to believe that they will never get in. -- Charles Dickens
You should know," said Estella. "I am what you have made me. Take all the praise, take all the blame; take all the success, take all the failure; in short, take me. -- Charles Dickens
"I fear your kind and open communication, which has rendered me more painfully conscious of my own defects, has not improved me," sighed Kate. -- Charles Dickens
Mr. Tracy Tupman - the too susceptible Tupman, who to the wisdom and experience of maturer years superadded the enthusiasm and ardour of a boy in the most interesting and pardonable of human weaknesses - love. -- Charles Dickens
I clutched the leg of the table again immediately, and pressed it to my bosom as if it had been the companion of my youth and friend of my soul. I foresaw what was coming, and I felt that this time I really was gone. -- Charles Dickens
Affection, homage, devotion, does not easily express itself. Its voice is low. It is modest and retiring, it lies in ambush, waits and waits. Sometimes a life glides away, and finds it still ripening in the shade0 -- Charles Dickens
The man who now confronted Gashford, was a squat, thickset personage, with a low, retreating forehead, a coarse shock head of hair, and eyes so small and near together, that his broken nose alone seemed to prevent their meeting and fusing into one of the usual size. -- Charles Dickens
God bless us, every one! -- Charles Dickens
And this is the eternal law. For, Evil often stops short at istelf and dies with the doer of it! but Good, never. -- Charles Dickens
The fair Volumnia, being one of those sprightly girls who cannot long continue silent without imminent peril of seizure by the dragon Boredom, soon indicates the approach of that monster with a series of undisguisable yawns. Finding -- Charles Dickens
There is no such passion in human nature, as the passion for gravy among commercial gentlemen. -- Charles Dickens
A man is lucky if he is the first love of a woman. A woman is lucky if she is the last love of a man. -- Charles Dickens
Invisible insects of diabolical activity swarm in this place. I am tickled and twitched all over. Mentally, I have now committed a burglary under the meanest circumstances, and the myrmidons of justice are at my heels. -- Charles Dickens
There are noble mausoleums rooted for centuries in retired glades of parks among the growing timber and the fern, which perhaps hold fewer noble secrets than walk abroad among men, shut up in the breast of Mr. Tulkinghorn. -- Charles Dickens
Hot punch is a pleasant thing, gentlemen
an extremely pleasant thing under any circumstances
but in that snug old parlour, before the roaring fire, with the wind blowing outside till every timber in the old house creaked again, Tom Smart found it perfectly delightful. -- Charles Dickens
She led me to believe we will going fast because her thoughts were going fast. -- Charles Dickens
Her father, cheering her, showed a compassionate superiority to this woman's weakness, which was wonderful to see. -- Charles Dickens
She better liked to see him free and happy, even than to have him near her, because she loved him better than herself. -- Charles Dickens
"Drink with me, my dear," said Mr. Weller. "Put your lips to this here tumbler, and then I can kiss you by deputy." -- Charles Dickens
I am afraid to think of what I might have done, on requirement, in the secrecy of my terror. -- Charles Dickens
Each spoke in her own language; neither understood the other's words; both were very watchful, and intent to deduce from look and manner, what the unintelligible words meant. -- Charles Dickens
Joe gave a reproachful cough,as much as to say,Well,told you so. -- Charles Dickens
None of us clearly know to whom or to what we are indebted in this wise, until some marked stop in the whirling wheel of life brings the right perception with it. -- Charles Dickens
I want to escape from myself. For when I do start up and stare myself seedily in the face, as happens to be my case at present, my blankness is inconceivable
indescribable
my misery amazing. -- Charles Dickens
Ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies. -- Charles Dickens
Our affections, however laudable, in this transitory world, should never master us; we should guide them, guide them. -- Charles Dickens
Every man thinks his own geese swans. -- Charles Dickens
From the days when it was always summer in Eden,to these days when it is mostly winter in fallen latitudes, the world of a man has invariably gone one way Charles Darnay's way the way of the love of a woman -- Charles Dickens
She kisses his lips; he kisses hers; they solemnly bless each other. The spare hand does not tremble -- Charles Dickens
Rattle me out of bed early, set me going, give me as short a time as you like to bolt my meals in, and keep me at it. Keep me always at it, and I'll keep you always at it, you keep somebody else always at it. There you are with the Whole Duty of Man in a commercial country. -- Charles Dickens
I find my breath gets short, but it seldom gets longer as a man gets older. I take it as it comes, and make the most of it. That's the best way, ain't it? -- Charles Dickens
I was glad to be tenderly remembered, to be gently pitied, not to be quite forgotten. -- Charles Dickens
And yet I love him. I love him so much and so dearly, that when I sometimes think my life may be but a weary one, I am proud of it and glad of it. I am proud and glad to suffer something for him, even though it is of no service to him, and he will never know of it or care for it. -- Charles Dickens
Equity sends questions to Law. Law sends questions back to equity; Law finds it can't do this, equity finds it can't do that; neither can do anything, without this solicitor instructing and this counsel appearing for A, and that solicitor instructing & that counsel appearing for B. -- Charles Dickens
CHAPTER L MR. TOOTS'S COMPLAINT -- Charles Dickens
For now, the very breath of the beans and clover whispered to my heart that the day must come when it would be well for my memory that others walking in the sunshine should be softened as they thought of me. -- Charles Dickens
My state of mind regarding the pilfering from which I had been so unexpectedly exonerated did not impel me to frank disclosure; but I hope it had some dregs of good at the bottom of it. -- Charles Dickens
This is a world of action, and not moping and droning in. -- Charles Dickens
It was a foggy day in London, and the fog was heavy and dark. Animate London, with smarting eyes and irritated lungs, was blinking, wheezing, and choking; inanimate London was a sooty spectre, divided in purpose between being visible and invisible, and so being wholly neither. -- Charles Dickens
"Ghost of the Future," he exclaimed, "I fear you more than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me?" -- Charles Dickens
Now, I'll tell you what, my friend," said Scrooge, "I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And therefore," he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into the Tank again: "and therefore I am about to raise your salary! -- Charles Dickens
*I love climbing mountains in all fields (Whatever was this fields).
*I love tranquility and it is more for me precious than money.
*Honesty is a few valuable nowadays.
after willing of God and Step by step with Concentration i will achieve What I want to. -- Charles Dickens
The First - Recalled to Life I. The Period II. The Mail III. The Night Shadows IV. The Preparation V. The Wine-shop -- Charles Dickens
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. -- Charles Dickens
After two hours and a half of this odd travelling (including a stoppage at a small town, where we were saluted by a gun considerably bigger than our own chimney), we reached Hartford, -- Charles Dickens
When the Attorney-General ceased, a buzz arose in the court as if a cloud of great blue-flies were swarming about the prisoner, in anticipation of what he was soon to become. -- Charles Dickens
Old Time, that greatest and longest established spinner of all! ... his factory is a secret place, his work is noiseless, and his hands are mutes. -- Charles Dickens
Time, consoler of affliction and softener of anger -- Charles Dickens
All of which Flora said with so much headlong vehemence as if she really believed it. There is not much doubt that when she worked herself into full mermaid condition, she did actually believe whatever she said in it. -- Charles Dickens
Old Mr. Rarx was not a pleasant man to look at, nor yet to talk to, or to be with, for no one could help seeing that he was a sordid and selfish character, and that he had warped further and further out of the straight with time. -- Charles Dickens
In fine weather the old gentelman is almost constantly in the garden; and when it is too wet to go into it, he will look out the window at it, by the hour together. He has always something to do there, and you will see him digging, and sweeping, and cutting, and planting, with manifest delight. -- Charles Dickens
As its silent track in the water disappeared, the prayer that had broken up out of his heart for a merciful consideration of all his poor blindnesses and errors, ended in the words, "I am the resurrection and the life. -- Charles Dickens
And you're welcome to whatever you put a name to. Thus entreated, the two gentlemen (Mr. Weevle especially) put names to so many things that in course of time they find it difficult to put a name to anything quite distinctly, -- Charles Dickens
The plain rule is, to do nothing in the dark, to be party to nothing under-handed or mysterious, and never to put his foot down where he cannot see ground. -- Charles Dickens
I think it must somewhere be written that the virtues of mothers shall be visited on their children, as well as the sins of their fathers. -- Charles Dickens
"Then idiots talk," said Eugene, leaning back, folding his arms, smoking with his eyes shut, and speaking slightly through his nose, "of Energy. If there is a word in the dictionary under any letter from A to Z that I abominate, it is energy." -- Charles Dickens
Don't worry me now, Fagin!' replied the girl, raising her head languidly. 'If Bill has not done it this time, he will another. He has done many a good job for you, and will do many more when he can; and when he can't, he won't, so no more about that. -- Charles Dickens
Money, says the proverb, makes money. When you have got a little, it is often easy to get more. -- Charles Dickens
He had returned when he did, on the pressing and written entreaty of a French citizen, who represented that his life was endangered by his absence. He had come back, to save a citizen's life, and to bear his testimony, at whatever personal hazard, to the truth. -- Charles Dickens
Even the Cock-lane ghost had been laid only a round dozen of years, after rapping out its messages, as the spirits of this very year last past (supernaturally -- Charles Dickens
What are the odds so long as the fire of the soul is kindled at the taper of conviviality, and the wing of friendship never molts a feather? -- Charles Dickens
And there, with an aching void in his young heart, and all outside so cold, and bare, and strange, Paul sat as if he had taken life unfurnished, and the upholsterer were never coming. -- Charles Dickens
A curious monomaniac,' said Eugene. 'The man seems to believe that everybody was acquainted with his mother! -- Charles Dickens
I love your daughter fondly, dearly, disninterestedly, devotedly. If ever there were love in the world, I love her. -- Charles Dickens
Mr. Bazzard's father, being a Norfolk farmer, would have furiously laid about him with a flail, a pitch-fork, and every agricultural implement available for assaulting purposes, on the slightest hint of his son's having written a play. -- Charles Dickens
Never close your lips to those whom you have already opened your heart. -- Charles Dickens
There never were greed and cunning in the world yet, that did not do too much, and overreach themselves. It is as certain as death. -- Charles Dickens
Newman cast a despairing glance at his small store of fuel, but, not having the courage to say no-a word which in all his life he never had said at the right time, either to himself or anyone else-gave way to the proposed arrangement. -- Charles Dickens
Oh! the suspense, the fearful, acute suspense, of standing idly by while the life of one we dearly love, is trembling in the balance! -- Charles Dickens
There was no pause, no pity, no peace, no interval of relenting rest, no measurement of time. Though days and nights circled as regularly as when time was young, and the evening and morning were the first day, other count of time there was none. -- Charles Dickens
To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart. -- Charles Dickens
O, if the deeds of human creatures could be traced to their source, how beautiful would even death appear; for how much charity, mercy, and purified affection would be seen to have their growth in dusty graves! -- Charles Dickens
Fledgeby deserved Mr. Alfred Lammle's eulogium. He was the meanest cur existing, with a single pair of legs. And instinct (a word we all clearly understand) going largely on four legs, and reason always on two, meanness on four legs never attains the perfection of meanness on two. -- Charles Dickens
"The twins no longer derive their sustenance from Nature's founts - in short," said Mr. Micawber, in one of his bursts of confidence, "they are weaned ... " -- Charles Dickens
Poetry makes life what lights and music do the stage. -- Charles Dickens
All partings foreshadow the great final one. -- Charles Dickens
They're so fond of Liberty in this part of the globe, that they buy her and sell her and carry her to market with 'em. They've such a passion for Liberty, that they can't help taking liberties with her. -- Charles Dickens
Take the pencil and write under my name, 'I forgive her. -- Charles Dickens
The ocean asks for nothing but those who stand by her shores gradually attune themselves to her rhythm. -- Charles Dickens
The meagre lighthouse all in white, haunting the seaboard, as if it were the ghost of an edifice that had once had colour and rotundity, dripped melancholy tears after its late buffeting by the waves. -- Charles Dickens
A man ain't got no right to be a public man, unless he meets the public views. -- Charles Dickens
There being nobody by, however, but a pauper old woman, who was rendered rather misty by an unwonted allowance of beer; and a parish surgeon who did such matters by contract; Oliver and Nature fought out the point between them. -- Charles Dickens
And the voices in the waves are always whispering to Florence, in their ceaseless murmuring, of love - of love, eternal and illimitable, not bounded by the confines of this world, or by the end of time, but ranging still, beyond the sea, beyond the sky, to the invisible country far away! -- Charles Dickens
Why, my girl,' cried Mr Meagles, more breathless than before, 'how did you come over? -- Charles Dickens
Courage, dear miss! Courage! Business! The worst will be over in a moment; it is but passing the room-door, and the worst -- Charles Dickens
Arrangements were made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster. Even the Cock-lane ghost had been laid only a round dozen of -- Charles Dickens
With throbbing veins and burning skin, eyes wild and heavy, thoughts hurried and disordered, he felt as though the light were a reproach, and shrunk involuntarily from the day as if he were some foul and hideous thing. -- Charles Dickens
Suspected and Denounced enemy of the Republic, Aristocrat, one of a family of tyrants, one of a race proscribed, for that they had used their abolished privileges to the infamous oppression of the people. Charles Evremonde, called Darnay, in right of such proscription, absolutely Dead in Law. -- Charles Dickens
He was bolder in the daylight-most men are. -- Charles Dickens
Bring in the bottled lightning, a clean tumbler, and a corkscrew. -- Charles Dickens
sweeping out of shops, and the -- Charles Dickens
He looked about him in a confused way, as if he had lost his place in the book of his remembrance; and he turned his face to the fire, and spread his hands broader on his knees, and lifted them off and put them on again. -- Charles Dickens
Wo-ho!" said the coachman. "So, then! One more pull and you're at the top and be damned to you, for I have had trouble enough to get you to it! - Joe! -- Charles Dickens
CHAPTER XV* SHEWING HOW VERY FOND OF OLIVER TWIST, THE MERRY OLD JEW AND MISS NANCY WERE -- Charles Dickens
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. -- Charles Dickens
Troubles are exceedingly gregarious in their nature, and flying in flocks are apt to perch capriciously. -- Charles Dickens
If I should make a mistake, it could never be set right in your lifetime. -- Charles Dickens
The clouds were drifting over the moon at their giddiest speed, at one time wholly obscuring her, at another, suffering her to burst forth in full splendor and shed her light on all the objects around; anon, driving over her again, with increased velocity, and shrouding everything in darkness. -- Charles Dickens
My advice is, never do to-morrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time. Collar him! -- Charles Dickens
Marley was dead: to begin with. -- Charles Dickens
An evening wind uprose too, and the slighter branches cracked and rattled as they moved, in skeleton dances, to its moaning music. -- Charles Dickens
All that is loathsome, drooping, or decayed is here. -- Charles Dickens
As he glided stealthily along, creeping beneath the shelter of the walls and doorways, the hideous old man seemed like some loathsome reptile, engendered in the slime and darkness through which he moved: crawling forth, by night, in search of some rich offal for a meal. -- Charles Dickens
[ ... ] certain it is that minds, like bodies, will often fall into a pimpled ill-conditioned state from mere excess of comfort, and like them, are often successfully cured by remedies in themselves very nauseous and unpalatable. -- Charles Dickens
Heaven above was blue, and earth beneath was green; the river glistened like a path of diamonds in the sun; the birds poured forth their songs from the shady trees; the lark soared high above the waving corn; and the deep buzz of insects filled the air. -- Charles Dickens
The terrible announcement that the baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll's frying-pan into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter! The immense relief of finding this a false alarm! The joy, and gratitude, and ecstasy! -- Charles Dickens
His face was stern, and much flushed. If he were really not in the habit of drinking rather more than was exactly good for him, he might have brought action against his countenance for libel, and have recovered heavy damages. -- Charles Dickens
The basin fell to the ground broken, and the water flowed to the feet of Madame Defarge. By strange stern ways, and through much staining blood, those feet had come to meet that water. -- Charles Dickens
I only know that it was, and ceased to be; and that I have written, and there I leave it. -- Charles Dickens
Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. -- Charles Dickens
What is the secret, my darling, of your being everything to all of us, as if there werre only one of us, yet never seeming to be hurried, or to have too much to do?
-Darney to Lucie -- Charles Dickens
Halloa!" the guard replied. -- Charles Dickens
Still his philanthropy was of that gunpowderous sort that the difference between it and animosity was hard to determine. -- Charles Dickens
But love is blind; and Nathaniel had a cast in his eye; and perhaps these two circumstances, taken together, prevented his seeing the matter in its proper light. -- Charles Dickens
CHAPTER XXXII OF THE HAPPY LIFE OLIVER BEGAN TO LEAD WITH HIS KIND FRIENDS -- Charles Dickens
It was considered at the time a striking proof of virtue in the young king that he was sorry for his father's death;but, as common subjects have that virtue too, sometimes, we will say no more about it. -- Charles Dickens
Love, however, is very materially assisted by a warm and active imagination: which has a long memory, and will thrive, for a considerable time, on very slight and sparing food. -- Charles Dickens
Master Bates sauntering along with his hands in his pockets ... -- Charles Dickens
but I was afraid of spending the few pence I had, and was even more afraid of the vicious looks of the trampers I had met or overtaken. I sought no shelter, therefore, but the sky; and -- Charles Dickens
A man would die tonight of lying out on the marshes, I thought. And then I looked at the stars, and considered how awful it would be for a man to turn his face up to them as he froze to death, and see no help or pitty in all the glittering multitude. -- Charles Dickens
My meaning is, that no man can expect his children to respect what he degrades. -- Charles Dickens
It is because I think so much of warm and sensitive hearts, that I would spare them from being wounded. -- Charles Dickens
Good day, citizeness. -- Charles Dickens
Well! And hallo you! -- Charles Dickens
A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!" Which all the family re-echoed. "God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all. -- Charles Dickens
We all did what we undertake to do, as faithfully as Herbert did, we might live in a Republic of the Virtues. -- Charles Dickens
London was decidedly overrated. -- Charles Dickens
Use - to live by his own industry in England, rather than on the industry of the overladen people of France. -- Charles Dickens
CHAPTER XIII SOME NEW ACQUAINTANCES ARE INTRODUCED TO THE INTELLIGENT READER; CONNECTED WITH WHOM, VARIOUS PLEASANT MATTERS ARE RELATED, APPERTAINING TO THIS HISTORY -- Charles Dickens
Many a gentleman lives well upon a soft head, who would find a heart of the same quality a very great drawback. -- Charles Dickens
fellow,' said the Father of the Marshalsea, laying his hand upon his shoulder, and mildly rallying him - mildly, because of his weakness, poor dear soul; -- Charles Dickens
With a weary and yet a pleased smile, and with an action as if he stretched his little figure out to rest, the child heaved his body on the sustaining arm, and seeking Rokesmith's face with his lips, said:
'A kiss for the boofer lady. -- Charles Dickens
Us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, -- Charles Dickens
There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth. -- Charles Dickens
Brave lodgings for one, brave lodgings for one,
A few feet of cold earth, when life is done;
A stone at the head, a stone at the feet,
A rich, juicy meal for the worms to eat;
Rank grass over head, and damp clay around,
Brave lodgings for one, these, in holy ground! -- Charles Dickens
No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another. -- Charles Dickens
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! -- Charles Dickens
Evil communications corrupt good manners. -- Charles Dickens
When this interchange of Christian name was effected, Madame Defarge, picking her teeth with her toothpick, coughed another grain of cough, and raised her eyebrows by the breadth of another line. -- Charles Dickens
All of us have wonders hidden in our breasts, only needing circumstances to evoke them. -- Charles Dickens
Probably every new and eagerly expected garment ever put on since clothes came in, fell a trifle short of the wearer's expectation. -- Charles Dickens
I found Uriah reading a great fat book, with such demonstrative attention, that his lank forefinger followed up every line as he read, and made clammy tracks along the page (or so I fully believed) like a snail. -- Charles Dickens
Perhaps the mourners learn to look to the blue sky by day, and to the stars by night, and to think that the dead are there, and not in graves -- Charles Dickens
I believe that virtue shows quite as well in rags and patches as she does in purple and fine linen, ... even if Gargery and Boffin did not speak like gentlemen, they were gentlemen. -- Charles Dickens
She must have made Joe Gargery marry her by hand. -- Charles Dickens
Light 'em up again!' said Mr Meagles. -- Charles Dickens
Your tale is of the longest," observed Monks, moving restlessly in his chair.
It is a true tale of grief and trial, and sorrow, young man," returned Mr. Brownlow, "and such tales usually are; if it were one of unmixed joy and happiness, it would be very brief. -- Charles Dickens
For our path in life ... is stony and rugged now, and it rests with us to smooth it. We must fight our way onward. We must be brave. There are obstacles to be met, and we must meet, and crush them! -- Charles Dickens
Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule. -- Charles Dickens
Be natural my children. For the writer that is natural has fulfilled all the rules of art.
(Last words, according to Dickens's obituary in The Times.) -- Charles Dickens
Volumnia hastens to express her opinion that the shocking people ought to be tried as traitors, and made to support the Party. -- Charles Dickens
full well knowing that, whatever little motes my beamy eyes may have descried in theirs, they belong to a kind, generous, large-hearted, and great people. -- Charles Dickens
There are chords in the human heart- strange, varying strings- which are only struck by accident; which will remain mute and senseless to appeals the most passionate and earnest, and respond at last to the slightest casual touch. -- Charles Dickens
I have said that they were truly happy; and without strong affection and humanity of heart,
and gratitude to that Being whose code is Mercy, and whose great
attribute is Benevolence to all things that breathe, happiness
can never be attained. -- Charles Dickens
It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was -- Charles Dickens
It was the first time it had ever occurred to me, that this detestable cant of false humility might have originated out of the Heep family. I had seen the harvest, but had never thought of the seed. -- Charles Dickens
Now, I return to this young fellow. And the communication I have got to make is, that he has great expectations. -- Charles Dickens
It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade. -- Charles Dickens
No, Mr. Carton. I am sure that the best part of it might still be; I am sure that you might be much, much worthier of yourself. -- Charles Dickens
The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists. -- Charles Dickens
Indeed this gentleman's stoicism was of that not uncommon kind, which enables a man to bear with exemplary fortitude the afflictions of his friends, but renders him, by way of counterpoise, rather selfish and sensitive in respect of any that happen to befall himself. -- Charles Dickens
I went away, dear Agnes, loving you. I stayed away, loving you. I returned home, loving you! -- Charles Dickens
The speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the third grown person present, all backed a little, and swept with their eyes the inclined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in order, ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the brim. -- Charles Dickens
"Ah, Miss, hope is an excellent thing for such as has the spirits to bear it!" said Mrs Wickam, shaking her head. "My own spirits is not equal to it, but I don't owe it any grudge. I envys them that is so blest!" -- Charles Dickens
The privileges of the side-table included the small prerogatives of sitting next to the toast, and taking two cups of tea to other people's one. -- Charles Dickens
Waiter! raw beef-steak for the gentleman's eye,-nothing like raw beef-steak for a bruise, sir; cold lamp-post very good, but lamp-post inconvenient-damned odd standing in the open street half-an-hour, with your eye against a lamp. -- Charles Dickens
My dear if you could give me a cup of tea to clear my muddle of a head I should better understand your affairs. -- Charles Dickens
She indulged in melancholy - that cheapest and most accessible of luxuries. -- Charles Dickens
Welcome, old aspirations, glittering creatures of an ardent underneath the holly! We know you, and have not outlived you yet. Welcome, old projects, and old loves, however fleeting, to your nooks among the steadier lights that burn around us -- Charles Dickens
Yes. I'm going to take a holiday. More than that; I'm going to take a walk. More than that; I'm going to ask you to take a walk with me. -- Charles Dickens
[S]he stood for some moments gazing at the sisters, with affection beaming in one eye, and calculation shining out of the other. -- Charles Dickens
If you have a suspicion in your own breast, keep that suspicion in your own breast. -- Charles Dickens
I am in the theatrical profession myself, my wife is in the theatrical profession, my children are in the theatrical profession.I had a dog that lived and died in it from a puppy; and my chaise-pony goes on, in Timour the Tartar. -- Charles Dickens
Them which is of other naturs thinks different. -- Charles Dickens
What I said had nothing to do with you. Why need you go trying on other people's hats? -- Charles Dickens
I can see her. Come close to me, Floy, and tell them," whispered the dying boy, "that the face of the picture of Christ on the staircase at school is not divine enough; the light from it is shining on me now, and the water is shining too, and rippling so fast, so fast." The evening light shone -- Charles Dickens
Lookee here, Pip, at what is said to you by a true friend. Which this to you the true friend say. If you can't get to be on common through going straight, you'll never get to do it through going crooked. So don't tell no more on 'em, Pip, and live well and die happy. -- Charles Dickens
He brought in the bread, cheese, and beer, with many high encomiums upon their excellence. -- Charles Dickens
Grown used to it. He had taught himself a language down here, - if only to know it by sight, and to have formed his own crude ideas of its pronunciation, could be called learning it. -- Charles Dickens
There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with -- Charles Dickens
What was over couldn't be begun, and what couldn't be cured must be endured; -- Charles Dickens
Time and tide will wait for no man, saith the adage. But all men have to wait for time and tide. -- Charles Dickens
I believe that the heaviest blow ever dealt at liberty's head will be dealt by this nation in the ultimate failure of its example to the earth. -- Charles Dickens
But injustice breeds injustice; the fighting with shadows and being defeated by them necessitates the setting up of substances to combat. -- Charles Dickens
I have broken where I should have bent; and have mused and brooded, when my spirit should have mixed with all God's great creation. The men who learn endurance, are they who call the whole world, brother. I have turned from the world, and I pay the penalty. -- Charles Dickens
Oh, a dainty plant is the ivy green, That creepeth o'er ruins old! Of right choice food are his meals, I ween, In his cell so lone and cold. Creeping where no life is seen, A rare old plant is the ivy green. -- Charles Dickens
There's a young man hid with me, in comparison with which young man I am a Angel. That young man hears the words I speak. That young man has a secret way pecooliar to himself, of getting at a boy, and at his heart, and at his liver. -- Charles Dickens
Depressed and slinking though they were, eyes of fire were not wanting among them; nor compressed lips, white with what they suppressed -- Charles Dickens
For a long time, no village girl would dress her hair or bosom with the sweetest flower from that field of death: and after many a year had come and gone, the berries growing there, were still believed to leave too deep a stain upon the hand that plucked them. -- Charles Dickens
I have often thought him since, like the steam hammer, that can crush a man or pat an eggshell, in his combination of strength with gentleness -- Charles Dickens
Please, sir, I want some more. -- Charles Dickens
If a dread of not being understood be hidden in the breasts of other young people to anything like the extent to which it used to be hidden in mine - which I consider probable, as I have no particular reason to suspect myself of having been a monstrosity - it is the key to many reservations. -- Charles Dickens
How many young men, in all previous times of unprecedented steadiness, had turned suddenly wild and wicked for the same reason, and, in an ecstasy of unrequited love, taken to wrench off door-knockers, and invert the boxes of rheumatic watchmen! -- Charles Dickens
Clasped in my embrace, I held the source of every worthy aspiration I ever had; the centre of myself, the circle of my life, my own ... my love of whom was founded on a rock! -- Charles Dickens
The town was glad with morning light; places that had shown ugly and distrustful all night long, now wore a smile; and sparkling sunbeams dancing on chamber windows, and twinkling through blind and curtain before sleepers' eyes, shed light even into dreams, and chased away the shadows of the night. -- Charles Dickens
The sum of the whole is this: walk and be happy; walk and be healthy. The best way to lengthen out our days is to walk steadily and with a purpose. -- Charles Dickens
What an unsubstantial, happy, foolish time! Of all the times of mine that Time has in his grip, there is none that in one retrospection I can smile at half so much, and think of half so tenderly. -- Charles Dickens
The white face of the winter day came sluggishly on, veiled in a frosty mist; and the shadowy ships in the river slowly changed to black substances; and the sun, blood-red on the eastern marshes behind dark masts and yards, seemed filled with the ruins of a forest it had set on fire. -- Charles Dickens
Toby's nose was very red, and his eye-lids were very red, and he winked very much, and his shoulders were very near his ears and his legs were very stiff, and altogether he was evidently a long way upon the frosty of cool. -- Charles Dickens
There was a frosty rime upon the trees, which, in the faint light of the clouded moon, hung upon the smaller branches like dead garlands. -- Charles Dickens
It was a cold hard easterly morning when he latched the garden gate and turned away. The light snowfall which had feathered his schoolroom windows on the Thursday, still lingered in the air, and was falling white, while the wind blew black. -- Charles Dickens
Opening her eyes again, and seeing her husband's face across the table, she leaned forward to give it a pat on the cheek, and sat down to supper, declaring it to be the best face in the world. -- Charles Dickens
A man in public life expects to be sneered at - it is the fault of his elewated sitiwation, and not of himself. -- Charles Dickens
Mr. Carton," she answered, after an agitated pause, "the secret is yours, not mine, and I promise to respect it. -- Charles Dickens
Come in,
come in! and know me better, man! I am the Ghost of Christmas Present. Look upon me! You have never seen the like of me before! -- Charles Dickens
He did each single thing as if he did nothing else. -- Charles Dickens
Prowling about the rooms, sitting down, getting up, stirring the fire, looking out the window, teasing my hair, sitting down to write, writing nothing, writing something and tearing it up ... -- Charles Dickens
Every traveler has a home of his own, and he learns to appreciate it the more from his wandering. -- Charles Dickens
EXPLANATORY NOTES A NOTE ON THE TOPOGRAPHY OF OLIVER TWIST -- Charles Dickens
Of events had lately come to the English Crown and People, from a congress of British subjects in America: which, strange to relate, have proved more important to the human race than any communications yet received through any of the chickens of the -- Charles Dickens
'It wasn't the wine,' murmured Mr. Snodgrass, in a broken voice. 'It was the salmon.' (Somehow or other, it never is the wine, in these cases.) -- Charles Dickens
Technological innovations had shifted the basis of England's economy from agriculture to industry between 1750 and 1850. The development of steam power and a boom -- Charles Dickens
There was an innocent piece of dinner-furniture that went upon easy castors and was kept over a livery stable-yard in Duke Street, Saint James's, when not in use, to whom the Veneerings were a source of blind confusion. The name of this article was Twemlow. -- Charles Dickens
CHAPTER XI TREATS OF MR. FANG THE POLICE MAGISTRATE; AND FURNISHES A SLIGHT SPECIMEN OF HIS MODE OF ADMINISTERING JUSTICExs -- Charles Dickens
CHAPTER XXVIII LOOKS, AFTER OLIVER, AND PROCEEDS WITH HIS? ADVENTURES -- Charles Dickens
I kissed her cheek as she turned it to me. I think I would have gone through a great deal to kiss her cheek. But I felt the kiss was given to the coarse common boy as a piece of money might have been, and that it was worth nothing. -- Charles Dickens
New thoughts and hopes were whirling through my mind, and all the colours of my life were changing. -- Charles Dickens
The emphasis was helped by the speaker's hair, which bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of firs to keep the wind from its shining surface, all covered with knobs, like the crust of a plum pie, as if the head had scarcely warehouse-room for the hard facts stored inside. -- Charles Dickens
And it was not until I began to think, that I began fully to know how wrecked I was, and how the ship in which I had sailed was gone to pieces. -- Charles Dickens
In this round world of many circles within circles, do we make a weary journey from the high grade to the low, to find at last that they lie close together, that the two extremes touch, and that our journey's end is but our starting-place? -- Charles Dickens
There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose. -- Charles Dickens
David Copperfield from head to foot! Calls a house a rookery when there's not a rook near it, and takes the birds on trust, because he sees the nests! -- Charles Dickens
Scattered wits take a long time in picking up. -- Charles Dickens
Wen you're a married man, Samivel, you'll understand a good many things as you don't understand now; but vether it's worth while goin' through so much to learn so little, as the charity-boy sand ven he go to the end of the alphabet, it's a matter of taste. -- Charles Dickens
"I saw her, in the fire, but now. I hear her in music, in the wind, in the dead stillness of the night," returned the haunted man. -- Charles Dickens
Bless the bright eyes of your sex! They never see, whether for good or bad, more than one side of any question; and that is always, the one which first presents itself to them. -- Charles Dickens
CHAPTER XVII OLIVER'S DESTINY, CONTINUING UNPROPITIOUS, BRINGS A GREAT MAN TO LONDON TO INJURE HIS REPUTATION -- Charles Dickens
Again the mender of roads went through the whole performance; in which he ought to have been perfect by that time, seeing that it had been the ingallible resource and indispenable enternainment for his village during a whole year. -- Charles Dickens
Brag is good dog, holdfast is better! -- Charles Dickens
My hair stands on end at the cost and charges of these boys. Why was I ever a father! Why was my father ever a father! -- Charles Dickens
A horse is a quadruped, and quadruped's latin for beast, as everybody that's gone through grammar knows, or else what's the use in having grammars at all? -- Charles Dickens
Both Miss Lavinia and Miss Clarissa had a superstition, however, that he would have declared his passion, if he had not been cut short in his youth (at about sixty) by over-drinking his constitution, and over-doing an attempt to set it right again by swilling Bath water. -- Charles Dickens
The wind's in the east ... I am always conscious of an uncomfortable sensation now and then when the wind is blowing in the east. -- Charles Dickens
Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own; and from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, it is but a succession of changes so gentle and easy that we can scarcely mark their progress. -- Charles Dickens
We lawyers are always curious, always inquisitive, always picking up odds and ends for our patchwork minds, since there is no knowing when and where they may fit into some corner. -- Charles Dickens
One disagreeable result of whispering is that it seems to evoke an atmosphere of silence, haunted by the ghosts of sound - strange cracks and tickings, the rustling of garments that have no substance in them, and the tread of dreadful feet that would leave no mark on the sea-sand or the winter snow. -- Charles Dickens
Vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess! -- Charles Dickens
He had a certain air of being a handsome man
which he was not; and a certain air of being a well-bred man
which he was not. It was mere swagger and challenge; but in this particular, as in many others, blustering assertion goes for proof, half over the world. -- Charles Dickens
I had considered how the things that never happen, are often as much realities to us, in their effects, as those that are accomplished. -- Charles Dickens
There was a little too much of the best intentions going on -- Charles Dickens
Its other name was Satis, which is Greek, or Latin, or Hebrew, or all three
or all one to me
for enough ... but it meant more than it said. It meant, when it was given, that whoever had this house, could want nothing else. -- Charles Dickens
And I may now avow, Mr Clennam,' said he, with a cordial shake of the hand, 'that if I had looked high and low for a partner, I believe I could not have found one more to my mind.' 'I say the same,' said Clennam. 'And -- Charles Dickens
But, for all that, they had a very pleasant walk. The trees were bare of leaves, and the river was bare of water-lilies; but the sky was not bare of its beautiful blue, and the water reflected it, and a delicious wind ran with the stream, touching the surface crisply. -- Charles Dickens
There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor. -- Charles Dickens
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. -- Charles Dickens
Circumstances may accumulate so strongly even against an innocent man, that directed, sharpened, and pointed, they may slay him. -- Charles Dickens
With a most intent and searching gaze -- Charles Dickens
CHAPTER XIV COMPRISING FURTHER PARTICULARS OF OLIVER'S STAY AT MR. BROWNLOW'S. WITH THE REMARKABLE PREDICTION WHICH ONE MR. GRIMWIG UTTERED CONCERNING HIM, WHEN HE WENT OUT ON AN ERRAND -- Charles Dickens
Poetry's unnat'ral; no man ever talked in poetry 'cept a beadle on boxin' day, or Warren's blackin' or Rowland's oil, or some o' them low fellows; never you let yourself down to talk poetry, my boy. -- Charles Dickens
When we have done our very, very best, papa, and that is not enough, then I think the right time must have come for asking help of others. -- Charles Dickens
So wicked do destruction and secrecy appear to honest minds, that Mr Lorry and Miss Pross, while engaged in the commission of their deed and in the removal of its traces, almost felt, and almost looked, like accomplices in a horrible crime. -- Charles Dickens
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery. -- Charles Dickens
I perceive your tongue is," returned madame; "and what the tongue is, I suppose the man is. -- Charles Dickens
Mr. Vholes's office, in disposition retiring and in situation retired, is squeezed up in a corner and blinks at a dead wall. -- Charles Dickens
External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. -- Charles Dickens
The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces, the pressing on of many footsteps in the outskirts of the -- Charles Dickens
A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach. "Bah!" said Scrooge, "Humbug! -- Charles Dickens
Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before
more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle. -- Charles Dickens
What do you mean, Phib? asked Miss Squeers, looking in her own little glass, where, like most of us, she saw - not herself, but the reflection of some pleasant image in her own brain. -- Charles Dickens
People must be amuthed. -- Charles Dickens
You learnt a great deal, Louisa, and so did your brother. Ologies of all kinds from morning to night. If there is any Ology left, of any description, that has not been worn to rags in this house, all I can say is, I hope I shall never hear its name -- Charles Dickens
I feel an earnest and humble desire, and shall do till I die, to increase the stock of harmless cheerfulness. -- Charles Dickens
But Rosa soon made the discovery that Miss Twinkleton didn't read fairly. She cut the love-scenes, interpolated passages in praise of female celibacy, and was guilty of other glaring pious frauds. -- Charles Dickens
Some remote fragment of Main Line to somewhere else, there was, which was going to ruin the Money Market if it failed, and Church and State if it succeeded, and (of course), the Constitution, whether or no; -- Charles Dickens
Walk and be Happy, Walk and be Healthy ... -- Charles Dickens
Had been sitting with his face turned towards the fire: giving the palms of his hands a warm and a rub alternately. As the young woman spoke, he -- Charles Dickens
I love these little people; and it is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh from God, love us. -- Charles Dickens
CHAPTER LII THE JEW'S LAST NIGHT ALIVE -- Charles Dickens
In the Destroyer's steps there spring up bright creations that defy his power, and his dark path becomes a way of light to Heaven. -- Charles Dickens
I do not know the American gentleman, God forgive me for putting two such words together. -- Charles Dickens
But I am thinking like a lover, or like an ass: which I suppose is pretty nearly the same. -- Charles Dickens
The leprosy of unreality disfigured every human creature in attendance. -- Charles Dickens
My poor girl, what is the matter?' She looked up suddenly, with reddened eyes, and with her hands suspended, in the act of pinching her neck, freshly disfigured with great scarlet blots. 'It's nothing to you what's the matter. It don't signify to any one. -- Charles Dickens
Growlery. When I am out of humour, I come and growl here. -- Charles Dickens
It being a part of Mrs. Pipchin's system not to encourage a child's mind to develop and expand itself like a young flower, but to open it by force like an oyster. -- Charles Dickens
"Peggotty!" repeated Miss Betsey, with some indignation. "Do you mean to say, child, that any human being has gone into a Christian church, and got herself named Peggotty?" -- Charles Dickens
It's my old girl that advises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained. -- Charles Dickens
Oh, yes, I know all about it,' replied the girl, laughing hysterically; and shaking her head from side to side, with a poor assumption of indifference. -- Charles Dickens
Full-Private Number One in the Awkward Squad of the rank and file of life was Sloppy, and yet had his glimmering notions of standing true to the Colours. -- Charles Dickens
His pain is over. It's better as it is!' Mrs. Tugby tried to comfort her with kindness. Mr. Tugby tried philosophy. -- Charles Dickens
I know that she deserves the best and purest love the heart of man can offer," said Mrs. Maylie; "I know that the devotion and affection of her nature require no ordinary return, but one that shall be deep and lasting. -- Charles Dickens
CHAPTER IX CONTAINING FURTHER PARTICULARS CONCERNING THE PLEASANT OLD GENTLEMAN, AND HIS HOPEFUL PUPILS -- Charles Dickens
He was by no means opposed to hard labour on principle, for he would work away at a cricket-match by the day together, - running, and catching, and batting, and bowling, and revelling in toil which would exhaust a galley-slave. -- Charles Dickens
Take warning of the consequences of being nobody's enemy but your own. -- Charles Dickens
It's over, and can't be helped, and that's one consolation, as they always say in Turkey, when they cut the wrong man's head off. -- Charles Dickens
Meow says the cat ,quack says the duck , Bow wow wow says the dog !
Grrrr! -- Charles Dickens
It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations. -- Charles Dickens
Broken aqueducts, left in the most picturesque and beautiful clusters of arches; broken temples; broken tombs. A desert of decay, sombre and desolate beyond all expression; and with a history in every stone that strews the ground. -- Charles Dickens
Christmas, and the end of the year, is definitely a time when people try their hardest to begin afresh, "a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely". (Dickens - "A Christmas Carol") - and JEAN -- Charles Dickens
It's a poor heart that never rejoices. Jane, go down to the cellar, and fetch a bottle of Upset ginger-beer. -- Charles Dickens
We are a bed business, and a coffee-room business. We are not a general dining business, nor do we wish it. In consequence, when diners drop in, we know what to give 'em as will keep 'em away another time. -- Charles Dickens
The United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company. -- Charles Dickens
To do a great right, you may do a little wrong; and you may take any means which the end to be attained will justify. -- Charles Dickens
She said the word often enough, and there could be no doubt that she meant to say it; but if the often repeated word had been hate instead of love - despair - revenge - dire death - it could not have sounded from her lips more like a curse. (29.88) -- Charles Dickens
It is when our budding hopes are nipped beyond recovery by some rough wind, that we are the most disposed to picture ourselves what flowers they might have borne, if they had flourished. -- Charles Dickens
Keeping all things in their places. Everybody was dressed for a Fancy Ball that was never to leave off. From the Palace of the Tuileries, through Monseigneur and the whole Court, through the Chambers, the Tribunals of Justice, and all society (except the scarecrows), -- Charles Dickens
VI. Hundreds of People VII. Monseigneur in Town VIII. Monseigneur in the Country IX. The Gorgon's Head X. Two Promises XI. A -- Charles Dickens
Town VIII. Monseigneur in the Country IX. The Gorgon's Head -- Charles Dickens
But, the comfort was, that all the company at the grand hotel of Monseigneur were perfectly dressed. If the Day of Judgment had only been ascertained to be a dress day, everybody there would have been eternally correct. -- Charles Dickens
IV. Congratulatory V. The Jackal VI. Hundreds of People VII. Monseigneur in Town VIII. Monseigneur in the Country -- Charles Dickens
In Town VIII. Monseigneur in the Country IX. The Gorgon's Head X. Two Promises XI. A Companion Picture -- Charles Dickens
Never imitate the eccentricities of genius, but toil after it in its truer flights. They are not so easy to follow, but they lead to higher regions. -- Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist has asked for more! -- Charles Dickens
It was a long and gloomy night that gathered on me, haunted by the ghosts of many hopes, of many dear remembrances, many errors, many unavailing sorrows and regrets. -- Charles Dickens
It is, as Mr. Rokesmith says, a matter of feeling, but Lor how many matters ARE matters of feeling! -- Charles Dickens
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. -- Charles Dickens
Her first proceeding there was to unlock a tall press, bring out several bottles, and pour some of the contents of each into my mouth. I think they must have been taken out at random, for I am sure I tasted aniseed water, anchovy sauce, and salad dressing. -- Charles Dickens
The law is a ass, Sir! -- Charles Dickens
There is excellent provision made of dainty new bread, crusty twists, cool fresh butter, thin slices of ham, tongue, and German sausage, and delicate little rows of anchovies nestling in parsley, not to mention new-laid eggs, to be brought up warm in a napkin, and hot buttered toast. For -- Charles Dickens
The mad joy over the prisoners who were saved, had astounded him scarcely less than the mad ferocity against those who were cut to pieces. -- Charles Dickens
Charles, throughout his imprisonment, had had to pay heavily for his bad food, and for his guard, and towards the living of the poorer prisoners. -- Charles Dickens
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. -- Charles Dickens
My impression is, after many years of consideration, that there never can have been anybody in the world who played worse. -- Charles Dickens
He was sailing over a boundless expanse of sea, with a blood-red sky above, and the angry waters, lashed into fury beneath, boiling and eddying up, on every side. There was another vessel before them, toiling and labouring in the howling storm: her canvas fluttering in ribbons from the mast. -- Charles Dickens
The sky was dark and gloomy, the air was damp and raw, the streets were wet and sloppy. The smoke hung sluggishly above the chimney-tops as if it lacked the courage to rise, and the rain came slowly and doggedly down, as if it had not even the spirit to pour. -- Charles Dickens
varieties of sunken cheek, cadaverous -- Charles Dickens
I saw that the bride within the bridal dress has withered like the dress, and like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes -- Charles Dickens
Guilty to an indictment denouncing him (with infinite jingle and jangle) for that he was a false traitor to our serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, prince, our Lord the King, by reason of his having, on divers occasions, and by divers means and ways, assisted -- Charles Dickens
He read with young men who could find any leisure and interest for the study of a living tongue spoken all over the world, and he cultivated a taste for its stores of knowledge and fancy. -- Charles Dickens
In Storm V. The Wood-Sawyer VI. Triumph VII. A Knock at the Door -- Charles Dickens
"She's a very charming and delightful creature," quoth Mr. Robert Sawyer, in reply; "and has only one fault that I know of, Ben. It happens, unfortunately, that that single blemish is a want of taste. She don't like me." -- Charles Dickens
Shadow IV. Calm in Storm V. The Wood-Sawyer VI. Triumph VII. A Knock at the Door VIII. A Hand at Cards -- Charles Dickens
Tongue; well that's a wery good thing when it an't a woman. -- Charles Dickens
Hush. Don't ask any questions. It's always best on these occasions to do what the mob do."
"But suppose there are two mobs?" suggested Mr. Snodgrass.
"Shout with the largest," replied Mr. Pickwick.
Volumes could not have said more. -- Charles Dickens
Mr. Pickwick was a philosopher, but philosophers are only men in armour, after all. -- Charles Dickens
Mr. Pickwick gazed through his spectacles for an instant on the advancing mass, and then fairly turned his back and
we will not say fled; firstly because it is an ignoble term, and, secondly, because Mr. Pickwick's figure was by no means adapted for that mode of retreat ... -- Charles Dickens
Such,' thought Mr. Pickwick, 'are the narrow views of those philosophers who, content with examining the things that lie before them, look not to the truths which are hidden beyond. -- Charles Dickens
I hope,' said Mr. Pickwick, 'that our volatile friend is committing no absurdities in that dickey behind. -- Charles Dickens
It only shows how true the old saying is, that a man never knows what he can do till he tries, gentlemen. From "Pickwick Papers" ch. 49 page 646 -- Charles Dickens
Mr. Pickwick was no sluggard, and he sprang like an ardent warrior from his tent-bedstead. -- Charles Dickens
To the eye it is fair enough, here; but seen in its integrity, under the sky, and by the daylight, it is a crumbling tower of waste, mismanagement, extortion, debt, mortgage, oppression, hunger, nakedness, and suffering. -- Charles Dickens
he would expatiate with great vehemence on the misery of idle and lazy habits; and would enforce upon them the necessity of an active life, by sending them supperless to bed. On -- Charles Dickens
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. -- Charles Dickens
With a leer of mingled sweetness and slyness; with one eye on the future, one on the bride, and an arch expression in her face, partly spiritual, partly spirituous, and wholly professional and peculiar to her art; Mrs Gamp rummaged in her pocket again [ ... ] -- Charles Dickens
Strong mental agitation and disturbance was no novelty to him, even before his late sufferings. It never is, to obstinate and sullen natures; for they struggle hard to be such. -- Charles Dickens
The wind is rushing after us, and the clouds are flying after us, and the moon is plunging after us, and the whole wild night is in pursuit of us; but, so far we are pursued by nothing else. -- Charles Dickens
I always loved that boy as if he'd been my
my
my own grandfather. -- Charles Dickens
The aim of talk should be like the aim of a flying arrow
to hit the mark; but to this end there must be a mark to hit, that is, there must be a listener. -- Charles Dickens
Don't you think that any secret course is an unworthy one? -- Charles Dickens
Herbert said of himself, with his eyes fixed on the fire, that he thought he must have committed a felony and forgotten the details of it, he felt so dejected and guilty. -- Charles Dickens
But it's wonderful,' said Mr. Giles, when he had explained, 'what a man will do, when his blood is up. I should have committed murder - I know I should - if we'd caught one of them rascals. -- Charles Dickens
In that one glimpse of a better nature, born as it was in selfish thoughts, the rich man felt himself friendless, childless, and alone. -- Charles Dickens
Went down into a modest life of usefulness and happiness. Went down to give a mother's care, in the fulness of time, to Fanny's neglected children no less than to their own, and to leave that lady going into Society for ever and a day. -- Charles Dickens
For my love was founded on a rock, and it endures! -- Charles Dickens
As to sleep, you know, I never sleep now. I might be a Watchman, except that I don't get any pay, and he's got nothing on his mind. -- Charles Dickens
She watched his face as earnestly as he watched the river. But, in the intensity of her look there was a touch of dread or horror. -- Charles Dickens
And you, being a good man, can pass it as such, and forgive and pity the dreamer, and be lenient and encouraging when he wakes?"
Rick
"Indeed I can. What am I but another dreamer, Rick?"
Guardian -- Charles Dickens
top-boots - not to keep the reader any longer in suspense, in short, the eyes were the wandering eyes of Mr. Grummer, and the body was the body of the same gentleman. -- Charles Dickens
Battledore and shuttlecock's a wery good game, vhen you an't the shuttlecock and two lawyers the battledores, in which case it gets too exciting to be pleasant. -- Charles Dickens
Possibly we might even improve the world a little, if we got up early in the morning, and took off our coats to the work. -- Charles Dickens
Friendless I can never be, for all mankind are my kindred, and I am on ill terms with no one member of my great family. -- Charles Dickens
In a word, it was impossible for me to separate her, in the past or in the present, from the innermost life of my life. -- Charles Dickens
She writhes under her life. A woman more angry, passionate, reckless, and revengeful never lived. -- Charles Dickens
He wouldn't let his son have any name if he could take it from him," returned the old lady. "Look at the son's dress!" It certainly was plain - threadbare - almost shabby. "Yet the father must be garnished and tricked out," said the old lady, "because of his deportment. I'd deport him! Transport -- Charles Dickens
We came to the house, and it is an old house, full of great chimneys where wood is burnt on ancient dogs upon the hearth, and grim portraits (some of them with grim legends, too) lower distrustfully from the oaken panels of the walls. -- Charles Dickens
I was very glad afterwards to have had the interview; for, in her face and in her voice, and in her touch, she gave me the assurance, that suffering had been stronger than Miss Havisham's teaching, and had given her a heart to understand what my heart used to be. -- Charles Dickens
Calamity with us, is made an excuse for doing wrong. With them, it is erected into a reason for their doing right. This is really the justice of rich to poor, and I protest against it because it is so. -- Charles Dickens
The night was as dark by this time as it would be until morning; and what light we had, seemed to come from the river than the sky, as the oars in their dipping struck at a few reflected stars. -- Charles Dickens
The night crept on apace, the moon went down, the stars grew pale and dim, and morning, cold as they, slowly approached. Then, from behind a distant hill, the noble sun rose up, driving the mists in phantom shapes before it, and clearing the earth of their ghostly forms till darkness came again. -- Charles Dickens
I. The Period It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, -- Charles Dickens