Charles Quotes & Sayings

The things we think we want are often substitutes for what we really want, and the pleasures we seek are less than the joy that they distract us from. — Charles Eisenstein

Posthumous fame is a plant of tardy growth, for our body must be the seed of it; or we may liken it to a torch, which nothing but the last spark of life can light up; or we may compare it to the trumpet of the archangel, for it is blown over the dead; but unlike that awful blast, it is of earth, not of heaven, and can neither rouse nor raise us. — Charles Caleb Colton

There was 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 a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever. — Charles Dickens

(comparatively) to so few!3 It used — Charles Dickens

The clear cold sunshine glances into the brittle woods, and approvingly beholds the sharp wind scattering the leaves and drying the moss. It glides over the park after the moving shadows of the clouds, and chases them, and never catches them, all day. It looks in the windows, and touches the ancestral portraits with bars and patches of brightness, never contemplated by the painters. — 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

The extension of women's rights is the basic principle of all social progress. — Charles Fourier

Gods, the pamphlets asserted, were not supernatural beings, but tenuously living things, like ethereal plants, that evolved in concert with the human species. We were simply their medium - our brains and flesh the soil in which they sprouted and grew. — Robert Charles Wilson

From his soft fur, golden and brown, Goes out so sweet a scent, one night I might have been embalmed in it By giving him one little pet. He is my household's guardian soul; He judges, he presides, inspires All matters in his royal realm; Might he be fairy? or a god? When my eyes, to this cat I love Drawn as by a magnet's force, Turn tamely back upon that appeal, And when I look within myself, I notice with astonishment The fire of his opal eyes, Clear beacons glowing, living jewels, Taking my measure, steadily. — Charles Baudelaire

All providences are doors to trial. Men may be drowned in seas of prosperity as well as in rivers of affliction. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

A garden was the primitive prison, till man with Promethean felicity and boldness, luckily sinned himself out of it. — Charles Lamb

We're all our own prisons, we are each all our own wardens and we do our own time. I can't judge anyone else. What other people do is not really my affair unless they approach me with it. Prison's in your mind. Can't you see I'm free? — Charles Manson

Fannie Mae has traditionally only bought and sold mortgages. But when a loan held by the company goes into foreclosure, Fannie Mae gains ownership of the underlying property until it is resold to new investors. — Charles Duhigg

Peggotty and I were sitting one night by the parlour fire, alone. I had been reading to Peggotty about crocodiles. I must have read very perspicuously, or the poor soul must have been deeply interested, for I remember she had a cloudy impression, after I had done, that they were a sort of vegetable. I — Charles Dickens

It's humbug still!" said Scrooge. "I won't believe it. — Charles Dickens

You know the typical crowd, Wow, it's Friday night, what are you going to do? Just sit there? Well, yeah. Because there's nothing out there. It's stupidity. Stupid people mingling with stupid people. Let them stupidify themselves. I've never been bothered with the need to rush out into the night. That's all. Sorry for all the millions, but I've never been lonely. I like myself. I'm the best form of entertainment I have. — Charles Bukowski

Certainly in each social period, youth must be made to venerate the dominant absurdities. — Charles Fourier

The day was made for laziness, and lying on one's back in green places, and staring at the sky till its brightness forced one to shut one's eyes and go to sleep ... — Charles Dickens

The true church is not made of creeds and forms, nor is it contained in walls of wood and stone; the heart of man is its temple and the Spirit of truth is the one guide into all Truth. When men learn to turn within to the Spirit of truth, who is in each one for his light and inspiration, the differences between the churches of man will be eliminated, and the one church will be recognized. — Charles Fillmore

The Delta is a conservative place, .. District 28 is a very conservative district. We don't have many conservative districts in the Delta. Mississippi is a conservative place. We need to keep it that way. — Charles Capps

Evil comes up softly like a flower. — Charles Baudelaire

A revival may be expected when Christians have a spirit of prayer for a revival. That is, when they pray as if their hearts were set upon it. When Christians have the spirit of prayer for a revival. When they go about groaning out their hearts desire. When they have real travail of soul. — Charles Grandison Finney

What it 't to us, if taxes rise or fall,
Thanks to our fortune, we pay none at all.
Let muckworms who in dirty acres deal,
Lament those hardships which we cannot feel,
His grace who smarts, may bellow if he please,
But must I bellow too, who sit at ease?
By custom safe, the poets' numbers flow,
Free as the light and air some years ago.
No statesman e'er will find it worth his pains
To tax our labours, and excise our brains.
Burthens like these with earthly buildings bear,
No tributes laid on castles in the air. — Charles Churchill

Some go to church to take a walk; some go there to laugh and talk. Some go there to meet a friend; some go there their time to spend. Some go there to meet a lover; some go there a fault to cover. Some go there for speculation; some go there for observation. Some go there to doze and nod; the wise go there to worship God. — Charles Spurgeon

God has a way of giving by the cartloads to those who give away by shovelfuls. — Charles Spurgeon

Charles, a footman who had once worked on his father's farm and who loved animals, appeared and came over to help her prepare dishes of boiled chicken and brown rice for the cats and dogs waiting eagerly at their feet.
When guests were staying, Charles often assisted with the care of her furry brood. Without asking, he set to work, even taking a few moments to gather fresh meat scraps for Aeolus, her wounded hawk, and cut-up apple and beetroots for Poppy, a convalescing rabbit who had an injured leg. He gave her several more apple quarters for the horses, who got jealous if she didn't bring them treats as well.
Once all her cats and dogs were fed, Esme set off for the stables, laden pail in hand, Burr trotting at her heels. She stopped along the way to chat with the gardener and his assistant, who gave her some timothy grass, comfrey and lavender to supplement the hay she regularly fed Poppy. — Tracy Anne Warren

Charles de Foucauld, the found of the Little Brothers of Jesus, wrote a single sentence that's ahad a profound impact on my life. He said, "The one thing we owe absolutely to God is never to be afraid of anything." Never to be afraid of anything, even death, which, after all, is but that final breakthrough into the open, waiting, outstretched arms of Abba. — Brennan Manning

You're saying you would sit in my pub and talk into a wireless, and they would hear it in America? — Charles Ayling

You knew the difference between Barbra Streisand and Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles, straight away. Now everyone sounds like each other, and I don't think that's right. — Bobby Womack

When men have ridden the high horse, destruction has always overtaken them. Let — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

We must be more and more to each other, my dear wife.' -Charles Darwin to wife Emma upon loss of daughter Annie — Deborah Heiligman

Remember that accumulated knowledge, like accumulated capital, increases at compound interest: but it differs from the accumulation of capital in this; that the increase of knowledge produces a more rapid rate of progress, whilst the accumulation of capital leads to a lower rate of interest. Capital thus checks its own accumulation: knowledge thus accelerates its own advance. Each generation, therefore, to deserve comparison with its predecessor, is bound to add much more largely to the common stock than that which it immediately succeeds. — Charles Babbage

The King's son, who was told that a great princess, whom nobody knew, was come, ran out to receive her. He gave her his hand as she alighted from the coach, and led her into the hall where the company were assembled. — Charles Perrault

My Master of Arts degree means nothing at all to these monkeys and I have come to share their indifference. — Charles Portis

99 percent of success is built on failure. — Charles Kettering

As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like, were unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father's, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription, "Also Georgiana Wife of the Above", I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly. — Charles Dickens

One of the great reasons for the popularity of strikes is that they give the suppressed self a sense of power. For once the human tool knows itself a man, able to stand up and speak a word or strike a blow. — Charles Horton Cooley

You can forgive a fool because he only runs in one direction and doesn't deceive anybody. It's the deceivers who make you feel bad. — Charles Bukowski

We are trying to make up these other elements by gaining cost efficiencies through our reengineering process and through overt fund-raising activities to better support graduate education. — Charles Vest

As the salt flavors every drop in the Atlantic, so does sin affect every atom of our nature. It is so sadly there, so abundantly there, that if you cannot detect it, you are deceived. — Charles Spurgeon

Do you feel yourself to be a lost, guilty sinner? Go straightway to the cross of Christ, — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

But how can I give to God what is rightfully His? There is only one way; that is in service to others. — Charles L. Allen

Fate is a sea without a shore, and the soul is a rock that abides. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Without mysteries, life would be very dull indeed. What would be left to strive for if everything were known? — Charles De Lint

Confused by the emotion of the day, and feeling his being there with this Double of coarse deportment, to be like a dream, Charles Darnay was at a loss how to answer; finally, answered not at all. "Now your dinner is done," Carton presently said, "why don't you call a health, Mr. Darnay; why don't you give your toast?" "What health? What toast?" "Why, it's on the tip — Charles Dickens

Miss Brobity's Being, young man, was deeply imbued with homage to Mind. She revered Mind, when launched, or, as I say, precipitated, on an extensive knowledge of the world. When I made my proposal, she did me the honour to be so overshadowed with a species of Awe, as to be able to articulate only the two words, "O Thou!" meaning myself. Her limpid blue eyes were fixed upon me, her semi-transparent hands were clasped together, pallor overspread her aquiline features, and, though encouraged to proceed, she never did proceed a word further. I disposed of the parallel establishment by private contract, and we became as nearly one as could be expected under the circumstances. But she never could, and she never did, find a phrase satisfactory to her perhaps-too-favourable estimate of my intellect. To the very last (feeble action of liver), she addressed me in the same unfinished terms. — Charles Dickens

The quality of writing attracts me to films, also who the other actors are, who the director is, where it's being shot. Any or all of those things. But if the writing is really appalling, then the money had better be really good. Sometimes you say yes to something you wouldn't always do because you need the money. — Charles Dance

Some people like to read so many [Bible] chapters every day. I would not dissuade them from the practice, but I would rather lay my soul asoak in half a dozen verses all day than rinse my hand in several chapters. Oh, to be bathed in a text of Scripture, and to let it be sucked up in your very soul, till it saturates your heart! — Charles Spurgeon

Jesus must have the crown of our heart's delight; we will not dishonour our Bridegroom by mourning in his presence. We are ordained to be the minstrels of the skies, let us rehearse our everlasting anthem before we sing it in the halls of the New Jerusalem. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Some love to roam o'er the dark sea's foam, Where the shrill winds whistle free. — Charles Mackay

If I had my choice of all the blessings I can conceive of I would choose perfect conformity to the Lord Jesus, or, in one word, holiness. — Charles Spurgeon

When its dark enough you can see the stars. — Charles A. Beard

All the preaching in the world cannot make a man see the truth so long as his eyes are blinded. — Charles Spurgeon

Lighting new cigarettes,
pouring more
drinks.
It has been a beautiful
fight.
Still
is. — Charles Bukowski

A day hemmed in prayer is less likely to unravel. — Charles Spurgeon

A talent somewhat above mediocrity, shrewd and not too sensitive, is more likely to rise in the world than genius. — Charles Horton Cooley

Old Age, a second child, by nature curst
With more and greater evils than the first,
Weak, sickly, full of pains: in ev'ry breath
Railing at life, and yet afraid of death. — Charles Churchill

One day, on tearing off some old bark, I saw two rare beetles, and seized one in each hand. Then I saw a third and new kind, which I could not bear to lose, so I popped the one which I held in my right hand into my mouth. Alas! it ejected some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my tongue so that I was forced to spit the beetle out, which was lost, as was the third one. — Charles Darwin

I wish that Prince Charles had been shot. I think it would have made the world a more interesting place. — Steven Morrissey

When facing the apparent denial of my request, God gave me the opportunity to honor him by trusting His Word. — Charles Spurgeon

But right now it's Bob Dylan Bob Dylan Bob Dylan all the way. — Charles Bukowski

People need me. I fill them. If they can't see me for a while they get desperate, they get sick. But if I see them too often I get sick. It's hard to feed without getting fed. — Charles Bukowski

The least I can do is show Medgar I still care. And Martin. — Charles Evers

True love believes everything, and bears everything, and trusts everything. — Charles Dickens

I have seen dogs with more style than men,
although not many dogs have style.
Cats have it with abundance. — Charles Bukowski

We should choose our books as we would our companions, for their sterling and intrinsic merit. — Charles Caleb Colton

All my life I've always been so blue, born to lose, and now I'm losing you. — Ray Charles

It may be night in the soul - but there need be no terror, for the God of love changes not. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

An artist is an artist only because of his exquisite sense of beauty, a sense which shows him intoxicating pleasures, but which at the same time implies and contains an equally exquisite sense of all deformities and all disproportion. — Charles Baudelaire

A hug is worth a thousand words. — Charles Caleb Colton

The state of slavery is in its own nature bad. — Charles De Secondat

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

No matter how little a man has he will find that he will always settle for less. — Charles Bukowski

I believe that access to a university education should be based on the ability to learn, not what people can afford. I think there is no more nauseating a sight than politicians pulling up the ladder of opportunity behind them. — Charles Kennedy

Patience is a bitter plant that produces sweet fruit. — Charles R. Swindoll

When it comes to our public services, decentralisation means giving power back to those on the front line - our doctors, nurses, teachers and physiotherapists, and our locally elected officials. — Charles Kennedy

Is civilization progress? The challenge, I think, is clear; and, as clearly, the final answer will be given not by our amassing of knowledge, or by the discoveries of our science, or by the speed of our aircraft, but by the effect of our civilized activities as a whole have upon the quality of our planet's life-the life of plants and animals as that of men. — Charles Lindbergh

When we live habitually with the wicked, we become necessarily either their victim or their disciple; when we associate, on the contrary, with virtuous men, we form ourselves in imitation of their virtues, or, at least, lose every day something of our faults. — Charles Caleb Colton

That has to be the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to me in my whole life. — Charles M. Schulz

Strength comes from choosing to fully trust, pray, and praise. Our circumstances may not change, but in the process we change. — Charles R. Swindoll

Came Honker's trip to Slice City along about then: our sax-man got a neck all full of the sharpest kind of steel. So we were out one horn. And you could tell: we played a little bit too rough, and the head-arrangements Collins and His Crew grew up to, they needed Honker's grease in the worst way. But we'd been together for five years or more, and a new man just didn't play somehow. We were this one solid thing, like a unit, and somebody had cut off a piece of us and we couldn't grow the piece back so we just tried to get along anyway, bleeding every night, bleeding from that wound. ("Black Country") — Charles Beaumont

We know that God's being is perfect, His essence infinite, His dominion absolute, His power unlimited, and His glory transcendent. — Charles Spurgeon

Productivity, put simply, is the name we give our attempts to figure out the best uses of our energy, intellect, and time as we try to seize the most meaningful rewards with the least wasted effort. It's a process of learning how to succeed with less stress and struggle. It — Charles Duhigg

If youth is the period of hero-worship, so also is it true that hero-worship, more than anything else, perhaps, gives one the sense of youth. To admire, to expand one's self, to forget the rut, to have a sense of newness and life and hope, is to feel young at any time of life. — Charles Horton Cooley

A soul-winner can do nothing without God. He must cast himself
on the Invisible, or be a laughing-stock to the devil, who regards
with utter disdain all who think to subdue human nature with mere words and arguments. — Charles Spurgeon

Sometimes things aren't what they appear. We all have hurts that we don't show. — Charles Sheehan-Miles

When there is a spirit of controversy in the church or in the land, a revival is needful. The spirit of religion is not the spirit of controversy. There can be no prosperity in religion, where the spirit of controversy prevails. — Charles Grandison Finney

They're just the little people. Unknown all their lives and forgotten as soon as they die. If anyone talks about them, they're simply called the victim. But the killers, that's something else! They don't work or pay taxes or obey the law or live quiet lives of frustration. That's not news. Instead they kill. That makes them special. Charles Manson will be remembered and written about a hundred years from now, just as Jack the Ripper is remembered a hundred years after his crimes. Everybody wants a little recognition. More things are done for sheer recognition than for money or sex, as far as I can see. But the only ones who get it are the killers. Who knows all the names of Manson's victims? Or Jack the Ripper's victims? Or Charles Starkweather's victims? Or Caryl Chessman's victims? Who cares? They were just people. — Shane Stevens

While I wholeheartedly believe in choosing to approach every challenge with a great attitude, I don't mean that we should abandon authenticity and live in fantasyland. — Charles R. Swindoll

Long before I became 'rich and famous' I just sat round drinking wine and staring at the walls. — Charles Bukowski

Your like herpes you show up when shit gets tense, and never fully go away! - (Cooper to Violet) — Ann Charles

Those who would make us feel, must feel themselves. — Charles Churchill

Thus did the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five conduct their Greatnesses, and myriads of small creatures - the creatures of this chronicle among the rest - along the roads that lay before them. — Charles Dickens

When human rights are systematically abused, it raises the question whether it may be legitimate in some circumstances for the international community to intervene within individual states as well as in conflicts between states. — Charles Kennedy

The thing that's funny is that everyone thinks I'm dead. — Charles Nelson Reilly

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

To get the best results you must talk to your vegetables. — Prince Charles

A complete subnormal idiot. A good guy. wait until the fog came in some night and they sent him back to his lonely closed for a hand job. — Charles Bukowski

You didn't take your wife p. 59for fast and for loose; but for better for worse. — Charles Dickens

Life is fragile. Screw all that hesitant bullshit. We were going to go for it. — Charles Sheehan-Miles