Welcome to our collection of quotes (with shareable picture quotes) by Charles Dickens. We hope you enjoy pondering them and that you will share them widely.
Wikipedia Summary for Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read today.
Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. Despite his lack of formal education, he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed readings extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education and other social reforms.
Dickens's literary success began with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers. Within a few years he had become an international literary celebrity, famous for his humour, satire and keen observation of character and society. His novels, most of them published in monthly or weekly instalments, pioneered the serial publication of narrative fiction, which became the dominant Victorian mode for novel publication. Cliffhanger endings in his serial publications kept readers in suspense. The instalment format allowed Dickens to evaluate his audience's reaction, and he often modified his plot and character development based on such feedback. For example, when his wife's chiropodist expressed distress at the way Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield seemed to reflect her disabilities, Dickens improved the character with positive features. His plots were carefully constructed and he often wove elements from topical events into his narratives. Masses of the illiterate poor would individually pay a halfpenny to have each new monthly episode read to them, opening up and inspiring a new class of readers.
His 1843 novella A Christmas Carol remains especially popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also frequently adapted and, like many of his novels, evoke images of early Victorian London. His 1859 novel A Tale of Two Cities (set in London and Paris) is his best-known work of historical fiction. The most famous celebrity of his era, he undertook, in response to public demand, a series of public reading tours in the later part of his career.
The term Dickensian is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings, such as poor social or working conditions, or comically repulsive characters.
Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many-not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
The more man knows of man, the better for the common brotherhood among men.
Try not to associate bodily defect with mental, my good friend, except for a solid reason.
Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has many not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
The one serviceable, safe, certain, remunerative, attainable quality in every study, and every pursuit is the quality of attention.
My advice is, never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time.
The New Year, like an infant heir to the whole world, was waited for, with welcomes, presents, and rejoicings.
Any man may be in good spirits and good temper when he's well dressed.
With affection beaming in one eye, and calculation shining out of the other.
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 the enchanting scorn; it will be enough for me.
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.
I am the only child of parents who weighed, measured, and priced everything; for whom what could not be weighed, measured, and priced, had no existence.
Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
Time was with most of us, when Christmas Day, encircling all our limited world like a magic ring, left nothing out for us to miss or seek; bound together all our home enjoyments, affections, and hopes; grouped everything and everyone round the Christ.
You will be surprised that he proposed seven times, once in a hackney-coach once in a boat once in a pew once on a donkey at Tunbridge Wells and the rest on his knees.
Credit is a system whereby a person who can't pay, gets another person who can't pay, to guarantee that he can pay.
The sun himself is weak when he first rises; and gathers strength and courage as the day gets on.
Do all the good you can, and make as little fuss about it as possible.
'Did you ever taste beer?' 'I had a sip of it once,' said the small servant. 'Here's a state of things!' cried Mr. Swiveller--'.She never tasted it -- it can't be tasted in a sip!'
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.
Are you thankful for not being young?'
'Yes, sir. If I was young, it would all have to be gone through again, and the end would be a weary way off, don't you see?.
I would like to be going all over the kingdom...and acting everywhere. There's nothing in the world equal to seeing the house rise at you, one sea of delightful faces, one hurrah of applause!
Still his philanthropy was of that gunpowderous sort that the difference between it and animosity was hard to determine.
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.
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.
The shadows of our own desires stand between us and our better angels, and thus their brightness is eclipsed.
Cincinnati is a beautiful city; cheerful, thriving, and animated. I have not often seen a place that commends itself so favourably and pleasantly to a stranger at the first glance as this does.
My daughter, there are times of moral danger when the hardest virtuous resolution to form is flight, and when the most heroic bravery is flight.
For not an orphan in the wide world can be so deserted as the child who is an outcast from a living parent's love.
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.
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.
Bless those women; they never do anything by halves. They are always in earnest.
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.
Spring is the time of the year when it is summer in the sun and winter in the shade.
Did it ever strike you on such a morning as this that drowning would be happiness and peace?
An inebriated elderly gentleman in the last depths of shabbiness... played the calm and virtuous old men.
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.
Be natural my children. For the writer that is natural has fulfilled all the rules of art.
They are so filthy and bestial that no honest man would admit one into his house for a water-closet doormat.
Have you ever had the sensation of looking at someone for the first time and ever so quickly the past and future seem to fuse ? Does that not mean something ? That we felt so much, so deeply, before even speaking?
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!
This reminds me, Godmother, to ask you a serious question. You are as wise as wise can be (having been brought up by the fairies), and you can tell me this: Is it better to have had a good thing and lost it, or never to have had it?
There ain't a gen'lm'n in all the land -- nor yet sailing upon all the sea -- that can love his lady more than I love her.
And this is the eternal law. For, Evil often stops short at istelf and dies with the doer of it! but Good, never.
Many a time of an evening, when I sat alone looking at the fire, I thought, after all, there was no fire like the forge fire and the kitchen fire at home.
I believe the spreading of Catholicism to be the most horrible means of political and social degradation left in the world.
I confess I have yet to learn that a lesson of the purest good may not be drawn from the vilest evil.
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.
It was the momentary yielding of a nature that had been disappointed from the dawn of its perceptions, but had not quite given up all its hopeful yearnings yet.
Love is not a feeling to pass away
Like the balmy breath of a Summer's day...
Love is not a passion of earthly mould
As a thirst for honour, or fame, or gold.
It was one of those hot, silent nights, when people sit at windows, listening for the thunder which they know will shortly break; when they recall dismal tales of hurricanes and earthquakes; and of lonely travelers on open plains, and lonely ships at sea, struck by lightning.
A heart well worth winning, and well won. A heart that, once won, goes through fire and water for the winner, and never changes, and is never daunted.
No one who can read, ever looks at a book, even unopened on a shelf, like one who cannot.
Missionaries are perfect nuisances and leave every place worse than they found it.
Would you, do you, my dear? rejoined the Captain ... I don't know. It's difficult navigation. She's very hard to carry on with, my dear. You never can tell how she'll head, you see. She's full one minute, and round upon you next.
The miserable man was a man of that confined stolidity of mind that he could not discuss my prospects without having me before him.
Every man, however obscure, however far removed from the general recognition, is one of a group of men impressible for good, and impressible for evil, and it is in the nature of things that he cannot really improve himself without in some degree improving other men.
His philanthropy was of that gunpowderous sort that the difference between it and animosity was hard to determine.
We thought that, perhaps, said I, hesitating, it is right to begin with the obligations of home, sir; and that, perhaps, while those are overlooked and neglected, no other duties can possibly be substituted for them.
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.
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.
Martin took the same course, thinking as he went, that perhaps the free and independent citizens, who in their moral elevation, owned the colonel for their master, might render better homage to the goddess, Liberty, in nightly dreams upon the oven of a Russian Serf.
When I have heard him talking to Papa during the sittings for the picture, I have sat wondering whether it could be that he has no belief in anybody else, because he has no belief in himself.
Shall we speak of the inspiration of a poet or a priest, and not of the heart impelled by love and self-devotion to the lowliest work in the lowliest way of life?
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.
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!
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.
I was glad to be tenderly remembered, to be gently pitied, not to be quite forgotten.
I have no learning, and you have much,' said Milly; 'I am not used to think, and you are always thinking. May I tell you why it seems to me a good thing for us, to remember wrong that has been done us?'
'Yes.'
'That we may forgive it.
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.
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