Charles Dickens Quotes & Sayings

Eleven hundred defenceless prisoners of both sexes and all ages had been killed by the populace; — 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

they were not well dressed; their shoes were far from being water-proof; their clothes were scanty; and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside of a pawnbroker's. — Charles Dickens

He knew enough of the world to know that there is nothing in it better than the faithful service of the heart. — Charles Dickens

Poor Traddles, who had passed the stage of lying with his head upon the desk, and was relieving himself as usual with a burst of skeletons, said he didn't care. Mr. Mell was ill-used. 'Who has ill-used him, you girl?' said Steerforth. 'Why, you have,' returned Traddles. 'What have I done?' said Steerforth. 'What have you done?' retorted Traddles. 'Hurt his feelings, and lost him his situation. — Charles Dickens

When smoking umbrellas passed and repassed, spinning round and round like so many teetotums, — Charles Dickens

It is not often," said the second of the three, addressing Monsieur Defarge, "that many of these miserable beasts know the taste of wine, or of anything but black bread and death. Is it not so, Jacques? — Charles Dickens

and the owl made a noise with very little resemblance in it to the noise conventionally assigned to the owl by men-poets. But it is the obstinate custom of such creatures hardly ever to say what is set down for them. — Charles Dickens

"I know quite enough of myself," said Bella, with a charming air of being inclined to give herself up as a bad job, "and I don't improve upon acquaintance ... " — Charles Dickens

At the outer door to bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who, cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he returned them cordially. "There's another fellow," muttered Scrooge; who overheard him: "my clerk, with fifteen — Charles Dickens

Thus violent deeds live after men upon the earth, and traces of war and bloodshed will survive in mournful shapes long after those who worked the desolation are but atoms of earth themselves. — Charles Dickens

I hope you care to be recalled to life? — Charles Dickens

It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world--oh, woe is me!--and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned into happiness. — 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

I distress you; I draw fast to an end. — Charles Dickens

The streets looked small, of course. The streets that we have only seen as children always do I believe when we go back to them — Charles Dickens

The men who learn endurance, are they who call the whole world, brother. — Charles Dickens

In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection to justify much national boasting. Daring burglaries by armed men, and highway robberies, — 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

Consider nothing impossible, then treat possiblities as probabilities. — Charles Dickens

You are envious, Biddy, and grudging. You are dissatisfied on account of my rise in fortune, and you can't help showing it. — Charles Dickens

Mr. Tulkinghorn is always the same, speechless repository of noble confidences, so oddly out of place and yet so perfectly at home. — Charles Dickens

You can't make a head and brains out of a brass knob with nothing in it. You couldn't do it when your uncle George was living much less when he's dead. — Charles Dickens

It was very dark; but in the murky sky there were masses of cloud which shone with a lurid light, like monstrous heaps of copper that had been heated in a furnace, and were growing cold. — 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

Missionaries are perfect nuisances and leave every place worse than they found it. — 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

Mr Squeers himself acquired greater sternness and inflexibility from certain warm potations in which he was wont to indulge after his early dinner. — Charles Dickens

'Dear me, dear me,' replied a testy voice, 'I am very sorry for it, but what am I to do? I can't build it up again. The chief magistrate of the city can't go and be a rebuilding of people's houses, my good sir. Stuff and nonsense!' 'But the chief magistrate of the city can prevent people's houses from having any need to be rebuilt, if the chief magistrate's a man, and not a dummy - can't he, my lord?' cried the old gentleman in a choleric manner. — Charles Dickens

You'll find us rough, sir, but you'll find us ready. — Charles Dickens

Though we are perpetually bragging of it [the middle class] as our safety, it is nothing but a poor fringe on the mantle of the upper class. — Charles Dickens

You should keep dogs-fine animals-sagacious. — Charles Dickens

With drooping heads and tremulous tails, they mashed their way through the thick mud, floundering and stumbling between whiles, as if they were falling to pieces at the larger joints. As often as the driver rested them and brought them to a stand, with a wary "Wo-ho! so-ho- then!" the near leader violently shook his head and everything upon it - like an unusually emphatic horse, denying that the coach could be got up the hill. Whenever the leader made this rattle, the passenger started, as a nervous passenger might, and was disturbed in mind. — Charles Dickens

I have had my share of sorrows-more than the common lot, perhaps, but I have borne them ill. 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. — 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

The sun himself is weak when he first rises, and gathers strength and courage as the day gets on. — Charles Dickens

For, in the majority of cases, conscience is an elastic and very flexible article, which will bear a deal of stretching and adapt itself to a great variety of circumstances. Some people by prudent management and leaving it off piece by piece like a flannel waistcoat in warm weather, even contrive, in time, to dispense with it altogether; but there be others who can assume the garment and throw it off at pleasure; and this, being the greatest and most convenient improvement, is the one most in vogue. — Charles Dickens

Herbert received me with open arms, and I had never felt before so blessedly what it is to have a friend. When he had spoken some sound words of sympathy and encouragement, we sat down to consider the question, What was to be done? — Charles Dickens

In every life, no matter how full or empty ones purse, there is tragedy. It is the one promise life always fulfills. Thus, happiness is a gift, and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes, and to add to other peoples store of it. — Charles Dickens

"Walter," she said, looking full upon him with her affectionate eyes, "like you, I hope for better things. I will pray for them, and believe that they will arrive." — Charles Dickens

Him to sea. The board, in imitation of so wise and salutary — Charles Dickens

No one who can read, ever looks at a book, even unopened on a shelf, like one who cannot. — Charles Dickens

What connexion can there be, between the place in Lincolnshire, the house in town, the Mercury in powder, and the whereabout of Jo the outlaw with the broom, who had that distant ray of light upon him when he swept the churchyard-step? What connexion can there have been between many people in the innumerable histories of this world, who, from opposite sides of great gulfs, have, nevertheless, been very curiously brought together! — Charles Dickens

"There are strings," said Mr. Tappertit, flourishing his bread-and-cheese knife in the air, "in the human heart that had better not be wibrated ... " — Charles Dickens

Your day is done. Night is coming fast for you." - Nickolas Nickleby — Charles Dickens

If Husain (as) had fought to quench his worldly desires ... then I do not understand why his sister, wife, and children accompanied him. It stands to reason therefore, that he sacrificed purely for Islam. — Charles Dickens

I'm a straw upon the surface of the deep, and am tossed in all directions by the elephants — Charles Dickens

I have nothing else to tell; unless, indeed, I were to confess that no one can ever believe this narrative, in the reading, more than I have believed it in the writing. — 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

"Ay," said the Captain, reverentially; "it's a almighty element. There's wonders in the deep, my pretty. Think on it when the winds is roaring and the waves is rowling. Think on it when the stormy nights is so pitch dark," said the Captain, solemnly holding up his hook, "as you can't see your hand afore you, excepting when the wiwid lightning reweals the same; and when you drive, drive, drive through the storm and dark, as if you was a driving, head on, to the world without end." — Charles Dickens

Come, let's be a comfortable couple and take care of each other! How glad we shall be, that we have somebody we are fond of always, to talk to and sit with. — 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

After tea, when the door was shut and all was made snug (the nights being cold and misty now), it seemed to me the most delicious retreat that the imagination of man could conceive. To hear the wind getting up out at sea, to know that the fog was creeping over the desolate flat outside, and to look at the fire, and think that there was no house near but this one, and this one a boat, was like enchantment. Little Em'ly had overcome her shyness, and was sitting by my side upon the lowest and least of the lockers, which was just large enough for us two, and just fitted into the chimney corner. — Charles Dickens

On the Rampage, Pip, and off the Rampage, Pip - such is Life! — 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

Mrs General had no opinions. Her way of forming a mind was to prevent it from forming opinions. She had a little circular set of mental grooves or rails on which she started little trains of other people's opinions, which never overtook one another, and never got anywhere. — Charles Dickens

As yet, little Dora was quite unconscious of my desperate firmness, otherwise than as my letters darkly shadowed it forth. But — Charles Dickens

I am saying nothing. — Charles Dickens

Your sister Betsey Trotwood... — Charles Dickens

Money and goods are certainly the best of references. — Charles Dickens

To say that he was not startled, or that his blood was not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it had been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue. — Charles Dickens

You know, there is no language of vegetables, which converts a cucumber into a formal declaration of attachment. — Charles Dickens

Colonel Bulder, in full military uniform, on horseback, galloping first to one place and then to another, and backing his horse among the people, and prancing, and curvetting, and shouting in a most alarming manner, and making himself very hoarse in the voice, and very red in the face, without any assignable cause or reason whatever. — Charles Dickens

It was the beginning of a day in June; the deep blue sky unsullied by a cloud, and teeming with brilliant light. The streets were, as yet, nearly free from passengers, the houses and shops were closed, and the healthy air of morning fell like breath from angels, on the sleeping town. — Charles Dickens

Mr. Bucket and his fat forefinger are much in consultation together under existing circumstances. When Mr. Bucket has a matter of this pressing interest under his consideration, the fat forefinger seems to rise, to the dignity of a familiar demon. He puts it to his ears, and it whispers information; he puts it to his lips, and it enjoins him to secrecy; he rubs it over his nose, and it sharpens his scent; he shakes it before a guilty man, and it charms him to his destruction. — Charles Dickens

I had no thought, that night - none, I am quite sure - of what was soon to happen to me. But I have always remembered since, that when we had stopped at the garden gate to look up at the sky, and when we went upon our way, I had for a moment an undefinable impression of myself as being something different from what I then was. I know it was then, and there, that I had it. I have ever since connected the feeling with that spot and time, and with everything associated with that spot and time, to the distant voices in the town, the barking of a dog, and the sound of wheels coming down the miry hill. — Charles Dickens

The little child who was to have done so much was born before the turf was planted on its father's grave. It was a boy; and I, my husband, and my guardian gave him his father's name. The help that my dear counted on did come to her, though it came, in the eternal wisdom, for another purpose. Though to bless and restore his mother, not his father, was the errand of this baby, its power was mighty to do it. When I saw the strength of the weak little hand and how its touch could heal my darling's heart and raised hope within her, I felt a new sense of the goodness and the tenderness of God. — Charles Dickens

Has that Copperfield no tague! I would do a good deal for you, if you tell me, without lying that somebody had cut it out — Charles Dickens

People must be amuthed. — Charles Dickens

He knew more of my intended career than I knew myself. I should be well enough educated for my destiny if I could "hold my own" with average young man in prosperous circumstances. — Charles Dickens

And the sea did what it liked, and what it liked was destruction. It — Charles Dickens

This history must sometimes see with Little Dorrit's eyes, and shall begin that course by seeing him. — 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

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

Home is a word stronger than a magician ever spoke. — Charles Dickens

Not at all, but I hope to know it better. I am so profoundly interested in its miserable inhabitants." "Hah!" muttered Defarge. "The pleasure of conversing with — Charles Dickens

Dare I hint at that worse time when, strung together somewhere in great black space, there was a flaming necklace, or ring, or starry circle of some kind, of which I was one of the beads! And when my only prayer was to be taken off from the rest, and when it was such inexplicable agony and misery to be a part of the dreadful thing? — Charles Dickens

To bring deserving things down by setting undeserving things up is one of its perverted delights; and there is no playing fast and loose with the truth, in any game, without growing the worse for it. — Charles Dickens

The curtains of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow. — Charles Dickens

I would ask you to believe that he has a heart he very, very seldom reveals, and that there are deep wounds in it. My dear, I have seen it bleeding. — 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

The journey has been its own reward. That, — Charles Dickens

I laboured hard at my book, without allowing it to interfere with the punctual discharge of my newspaper duties; and it came out and was very successful. I was not stunned by the praise which sounded in my ears, notwithstanding that I was keenly alive to it, and thought better of my own performance, I have little doubt, than anybody else did. It has always been in my observation of human nature, that a man who has any good reason to believe in himself never flourishes himself before the faces of other people in order that they may believe in him. For this reason, I retained my modesty in very self-respect; and the more praise I got, the more I tried to deserve. — Charles Dickens

Pip, dear old chap. life is made of ever many partings welded together, as I may say, and one man's a blacksmith and one's a whitesmith, one's a goldsmith, and one's a coppersmith. Diwisions among such must come, and must be met as they come. — Charles Dickens

It is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too — Charles Dickens

A howling corner in the winter time, a dusty corner in the summer time, an undesirable corner at the best of times. — Charles Dickens

Lawyers hold that there are two kinds of particularly bad witnesses
a reluctant witness, and a too-willing witness. — Charles Dickens

Come out into the world about you, be it either wide or limited. Sympathize, not in thought only, but in action, with all about you. Make yourself known and felt for something that would be loved and missed, in twenty thousand little ways, if you were to die; then your life will be a happy one, believe me. — Charles Dickens

She stood looking at me, and, of course, I stood looking at her.
"Am I pretty?"
"Yes; I think you are very pretty."
"Am I insulting?"
"Not so much so as you were last time," said I.
"Not so much so?"
"No."
She fired when she asked the last question, and she slapped my face with such force as she had, when I answered it.
"Now," said she. "You little course monster, what do you think of me now?"
"I shall not tell you."
"Because you are going to tell upstairs. Is that it?"
"No," said I. "That is not it."
"Why don't you cry again, you little wretch?"
"Because I'll never cry for you again," said I. — Charles Dickens

Christmas is a poor excuse every 25th of December to pick a man's pockets. — Charles Dickens

the sight of me is good for sore eyes — 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

It's in vain, Trot, to recall the past, unless it works some influence upon the present. — Charles Dickens

But there have been times since, in my manhood, many times there have been, when I have thought, Is it possible, among the possibilities of hidden things, that in the sudden rashness of the child and her wild look so far off, there was any merciful attraction of her into danger, any tempting her towards him permitted on the part of her dead father, that her life might have a chance of ending that day — Charles Dickens

Alice!" said the visitor's mild voice, "am I late to-night?"
"You always seem late, but are always early. — Charles Dickens

Women, after all, gentlemen,' said the enthusiastic Mr. Snodgrass, 'are the great props and comforts of our existance. — Charles Dickens

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

Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. — Charles Dickens

Hand at Cards IX. The Game Made X. The Substance of the Shadow XI. Dusk — Charles Dickens

this is my landlord, Krook — Charles Dickens