Quotes by Charles Dickens

Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years it was a splendid laugh!

What a situation! cried Miss Squeers; ...What is the reason that men fall in love with me, whether I like it or not, and desert their chosen intendeds for my sake? Because they cant help it, miss, replied the girl; the reasons plain. (If Miss Squeers were the reason, it was very plain.)

She [Mrs. Badger] was surrounded in the drawing-room by various objects, indicative of her painting a little, playing the piano a little, playing the guitar a little, playing the harp a little, singing a little, working a little, reading a little, writing poetry a little, and botanizing a little. She was a lady of about fifty, I should think, youthfully dressed, and of a very fine complexion. If I add to the little list of her accomplishments that she rouged a little, I do not mean that there was any harm in it.

He [Old Mr. Turveydrop] was a fat old gentleman with a false complexion, false teeth, false whiskers, and a wig. He had a fur collar, and he had a padded breast to his coat, which only wanted a star or a broad blue ribbon to be complete. He was pinched in, and swelled out, and got up, and strapped down, as much as he could possibly bear.

But that, in shutting out the light of day, she had secluded herself from a thousand natural and healing influences; that her mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do and must and will that reverse the appointed order of their Maker, I knew equally well. And could I look upon her without compassion, seeing her punishment in the ruin she was, in her profound unfitness for this earth on which she was placed, in the vanity of sorrow which had become a master mania, like the vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, the vanity of unworthiness, and other monstrous vanities that have been curses in this world?

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.

The first rule of business is: Do other men for they would do you.

The one great principle of English law is to make business for itself.

Tis love that makes the world go round, my baby.

A loving heart is the truest wisdom.

Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true.

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!

Christmas time! That man must be a misanthrope indeed, in whose breast something like a jovial feeling is not roused - in whose mind some pleasant associations are not awakened - by the recurrence of Christmas.

There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast.

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

The age of chivalry is past. Bores have succeeded to dragons.

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 subject at a time.

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

If there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.

There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth.