Charles Dickens Quotes (757 Quotes)

A multitude of people and yet solitude.

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

The great grindstone, Earth, had turned when Mr. Lorry looked out again, and the sun was red on the courtyard. But, the lesser grindstone stood alone there in the calm morning air, with red upon it that the sun had never give, and would never take away.

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.

I have often remarked- I suppose everybody has- that one's going away from a familiar place, would seem to be the signal for a change in it.

This was my only and my constant comfort. When I think of it, the picture always rises in my mind, of a summer evening, the boys at play in the churchyard, and I sitting on my bed, reading as if for life.

I am what you designed me to be.I am your blade. You cannot now complain if you also feel the hurt

One should never be ashamed to cry. Tears are rain on the dust of earth.

How slight a thing will disturb the equanimity of our frail minds!

On the eve of long voyages or an absence of many years, friends who are tenderly attached will seperate with the usual look, the usual pressure of the hand, planning one final interview for the morrow, while each well knows that it is but a poor feint to save the pain of uttering that one word, and the meeting will never be. Should possibilities be worse to bear than certainties?

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

In seasons of pestilence, some of us will have a secret attraction to the disease--a terrible passing inclination to die of it.

The leprosy of unreality disfigured every human creature in attendance.

I found every breath of air, and every scent, and every flower and leaf and blade of grass and every passing cloud, and everything in nature, more beautiful and wonderful to me than I had ever found it yet. This was my first gain from my illness. How little I had lost, when the wide world was so full of delight for me.

I know enough of the world now to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything

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.

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.

Only twice more did the housekeeper reappear, and then her stay in the room was very short, and Mr. Jaggers was sharp with her. But her hands were Estella's hands, and her eyes were Estella's eyes...

I confess I have yet to learn that a lesson of the purest good may not be drawn from the vilest evil.

To this it must be added, that life in a wig is to a large class of people much more terrifying and impressive than life with its own head of hair …

Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear!

Among these, accordingly, much discoursing with spirits went on - and it did a world of good which never became manifest.

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.

There is prodigious strength in sorrow and despair.

I never heard that it had been anybody's business to find out what his natural bent was, or where his failings lay, or to adapt any kind of knowledge to him. He had been adapted to the verses and had learnt the art of making them to such perfection. I did doubt whether Richard would not have profited by some one studying him a little, instead of his studying them quite so much.

I only know that it was, and ceased to be; and that I have written, and there I leave it.

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!

I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief.

She must have made Joe Gargery marry her by hand.

I have seen enough, too, to know that it is not always the youngest and best who are spared to those that love them; but this should give us comfort rather than sorrow, for Heaven is just, and such things teach us impressively that there is a far brighter world than this, and that the passage to it is speedy.

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

And a beautiful world we live in, when it is possible, and when many other such things are possible, and not only possible, but done-- done, see you!-- under that sky there, every day.

It was so like Smith's work, so much more like the top of a strongly spiked wall than a head of hair, that the best of players at leap-frog might have declined him, as the most dangerous man in the world to go over.

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

I thought it very touching to see these two women, coarse and shabby and beaten, so united; to see what they could be to one another; to see how they felt for one another, how the heart of each to each was softened by the hard trials of their lives. I think the best side of such people is almost hidden from us. What the poor are to the poor is little known, excepting to themselves and God.

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

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.

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 pity in all the glittering multitude.

Spring is the time of year when it is summer in the sun and winter in the shade.

I only hope, for the sake of the rising male sex generally, that you may be found in as vulnerable and soft-hearted a mood by the first eligible young fellow who appeals to your compassion.

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!

Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seeds of rapacious licence and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind.

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

We men of business, who serve a House, are not our own masters. We have to think of the House more than ourselves

Mr Jarndyce, and prevented his going any farther, when he had remarked that there were two classes of charitable people: one, the people who did a little and made a great deal of noise; the other, the people who did a great deal and made no noise at all.

I thought her looking as she always does: superior in all respects to everyone around her

When a plunge is to be made into the water, it's of no use lingering on the bank.

I never had one hour's happiness in her society, and yet my mind all round the four-and-twenty hours was harping on the happiness of having her with me unto death.

Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.

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