Quotes by Charles Dickens
(Page 5 of 6)

The coffee was boiling over a charcoal fire, and large slices of bread and butter were piled one upon the other like deals in a lumber yard.

I revere the memory of Mr. F. as an estimable man and most indulgent husband, only necessary to mention Asparagus and it appeared or to hint at any little delicate thing to drink and it came like magic in a pint bottle; it was not ecstasy but it was comfort.

And a cool four thousand, Pip!
I never discovered from whom Joe derived the conventional temperature of the four thousand pounds, but it appeared to make the sum of money more to him, and he had a manifest relish in insisting on its being cool.

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.

Great men are seldom over-scrupulous in the arrangement of their attire.

The sun, -- the bright sun, that brings back, not light alone, but new life, and hope, and freshness to man -- burst upon the crowded city in clear and radiant glory. Through costly-coloured glass and paper-mended window, through cathedral dome and rotten crevice, it shed its equal ray.

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

God bless us, every one!

Every idiot who goes about with a 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.

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.

There is a passion for hunting something deeply implanted in the human breast.

Quadruped lions are said to be savage, only when they are hungry; biped lions are rarely sulky longer than when their appetite for distinction remains unappeased.

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.

The cloud of caring for nothing, which overshadowed him with such a fatal darkness, was very rarely pierced by the light within him.

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.

The word of a gentleman is as good as his bond -- sometimes better; as in the present case, where his bond might prove but a doubtful sort of security.

Reflect upon your present blessings -- of which every man has many -- not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.

The rippling of the river seemed to cause a correspondent stir in his uneasy reflections. He would have laid them asleep if he could, but they were in movement, like the stream, and all tending one way with a strong current.

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

And it is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh from God, love us.

The lesser grindstone stood alone there in the calm morning air, with a red upon it that the sun had never given, and would never take away.

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.

My dear if you could give me a cup of tea to clear my muddle of a head I should better understand your affairs.

Polly put the kettle on, we'll all have tea.

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.

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.

Heavens knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.

Let us leave our old friend in one of those moments of unmixed happiness which, if we seek them, there are ever some, to cheer our transitory existence here. There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast.

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.

Christmas a humbug, uncle! said Scrooge's nephew. You don't mean that, I am sure? I do, said Scrooge. Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? what reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough.

I find the nights long, for I sleep but little, and think much.

Not knowing how he lost himself, or how he recovered himself, he may never feel certain of not losing himself again.

So, I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,.

The aphorism Whatever is, is right, would be as final as it is lazy, did it not include the troublesome consequence that nothing that ever was, was wrong.

If I could not walk far and fast, I think I should just explode and perish.

The dew seemed to sparkle more brightly on the green leaves the air to rustle among them with a sweeter music and the sky itself to look more blue and bright. Such is the influence which the condition of our own thoughts, exercise, even over the appearance of external objects.

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.

Perhaps second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, come easily off and on.

I do not know the American gentleman, God forgive me for putting two such words together.

I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes.

His face, though lined, bore few traces of anxiety. But, perhaps the confidential bachelor clerks in Tellson's Bank were principally occupied with the cares of other people; and perhaps second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, come easily off and on.

Foggier yet, and colder! Piercing, searching, biting cold.

I never see any difference in boys. I only know two sorts of boys. Mealy boys and beef-faced boys.

So may the New Year be a happy one to you, happy to many more whose happiness depends on you!

Death is a mighty, universal truth.

A very little key will open a very heavy door.

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

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.

To a young heart everything is fun.

I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!

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.

Our love had begun in folly, and ended in madness!

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!

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.

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.

There are many things which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited.

It's Christmas Day! said Scrooge to himself. I haven't missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night. They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of course they can.

My impression is, after many years of consideration, that there never can have been anybody in the world who played worse.

Job Trotter bowed low; and in spite of Mr. Weller's previous remonstrance, the tears again rose to his eyes. 'I never see such a feller,' said Sam. 'Blessed if I don't think he's got a main in his head as is always turned on.

It's a weakness to be so affectionate, but I can't help it. No doubt my health would be much better if it was otherwise, still I wouldn't change my disposition if I could. It's the cause of much suffering, but it's a consolation to know I possess it, when I wake up in the night.

He takes out his anger by having his carriage speed through the streets, scattering the commoners in the way.

It is too late for that. I shall never be better than I am. I shall sink lower, and be worse.

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.

There have been occasions in my later life (I suppose as in most lives) when I have felt for a time as if a thick curtain had fallen on all its interest and romance, to shut me out from anything save dull endurance any more.

But everything in our intercourse did give me pain. Whatever her tone with me happened to be, I could put no trust in it, and build no hope on it; and yet I went on against trust and against hope. Why repeat it a thousand times? So it always was.

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.

There are very few moments in a man's existence when he experiences so much ludicrous distress, or meets with so little charitable commiseration, as when he is in pursuit of his own hat.

Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.

Please, sir, I want some more.

We changed again, and yet again, and it was now too late and too far to go back, and I went on. And the mists had all solemnly risen now, and the world lay spread before me.

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

My sister having so much to do, was going to church vicariously, that is to say, Joe and I were going.

We'll start to forget a place once we left it.

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.

Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and some people do the same by their religion.

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.

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.

To have a cricket on the hearth is the luckiest thing in all the world!

The life of Shakespeare is a fine mystery and I tremble every day lest something turn up.

Every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last.

Everything that Mr Smallweed's grandfather ever put away in his mind was a grub at first, and is a grub at last. In all his life he has never bred a single butterfly.

Keep out of Chancery. It's being ground to bits in a slow mill; it's being roasted at a slow fire; it's being stung to death by single bees; it's being drowned by drops; it's going mad by grains.

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!

Your Honour, unless your Honour, without a moment's loss of time, makes sail for the nearest shore, this is a doomed ship, and her name is the Coffin!

He thought of the number of girls and women she had seen marry, how many homes with children in them she had seen grow up around her, how she had contentedly pursued her own lone quite path-for him.
~ Stephen speaking of Rachael.

I never could have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one object at a time.

My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest.

What an immense impression Paris made upon me. It is the most extraordinary place in the world!

If the parks be the lungs of London we wonder what Greenwich Fair is -- a periodical breaking out, we suppose -- a sort of spring rash.

It was not because I had a strong sense of the virtue of industry, but because Joe had a strong sense of the virtue of industry, that I worked with tolerable zeal against the grain.

Christmas is a time in which, of all times in the year, the memory of every remediable sorrow, wrong, and trouble in the world around us, should be active with us, not less than our own experiences, for all good.

They are Man's and they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance and this girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.

I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.

I have always thought of Christmas time... as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time.

There seems a magic in the very name of Christmas.