Charles Dickens quotes

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CHARLES DICKENS QUOTES II Wherever religion is resorted to as a strong drink, and as an escape from the dull, monotonous round of home, those of its ministers who pepper the highest will be the surest to please. They who strew the Eternal Path with the greatest amount of brimstone, and who most ruthlessly tread down the flowers and leaves that grow by the wayside, will be voted the most righteous; and they who enlarge with the greatest pertinacity on the difficulty of getting into heaven will be considered, by all true believers, certain of going there: though it would be hard to say by what process of reasoning this conclusion is arrived at. CHARLES DICKENS, American Notes It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself. CHARLES DICKENS, A Christmas Carol If I couldn't walk fast and far, I should just explode and perish. CHARLES DICKENS, letter to John Forster, September 29, 1854 Trifles make the sum of life. CHARLES DICKENS, David Copperfield 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. CHARLES DICKENS, "The Art of Listening", All the Year Round Once a gentleman, and always a gentleman. CHARLES DICKENS, Little Dorrit Poetry makes life what lights and music do the stage. CHARLES DICKENS, The Pickwick Papers Reflect upon your present blessings — of which every man has many — not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. CHARLES DICKENS, "Characters," Sketches by Boz In the little world in which children have their existence whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice. It may be only small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child is small, and its world is small, and its rocking-horse stands as many hands high, according to scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter. CHARLES DICKENS, Great Expectations Dreams are the bright creatures of poem and legend, who sport on earth in the night season, and melt away in the first beam of the sun, which lights grim care and stern reality on their daily pilgrimage through the world. CHARLES DICKENS, Nicholas Nickleby 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. CHARLES DICKENS, A Tale of Two Cities Money and goods are certainly the best of references. CHARLES DICKENS, Our Mutual Friend 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. CHARLES DICKENS, A Christmas Carol Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded together. CHARLES DICKENS, Great Expectations Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes. CHARLES DICKENS, Nicholas Nickleby Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts. CHARLES DICKENS, Our Mutual Friend It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. CHARLES DICKENS, A Tale of Two Cities Fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of friendship; and pass the rosy wine. CHARLES DICKENS, The Old Curiosity Shop The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again. CHARLES DICKENS, Nicholas Nickleby The talker has found a hearer but not a listener; and though he may talk his very best for his own sake, you will find that his mental movements are erratic: they have no fixed centre and no definite object. His talk is like the water of a canal whose banks have given way, which rolls aimlessly hither and thither, without fulfilling any useful function, though it is the same water which was so helpful and serviceable, when it was confined within clearly marked limits by the restraining force of its earthy boundaries. CHARLES DICKENS, "The Art of Listening", All the Year Round The most important thing in life is to stop saying 'I wish' and start saying 'I will.' CHARLES DICKENS, David Copperfield It is no small thing, when they, who are so fresh from God, love us. CHARLES DICKENS, Master Humphrey's Clock The leprosy of unreality disfigured every human creature in attendance. CHARLES DICKENS, A Tale of Two Cities His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him. CHARLES DICKENS, A Christmas Carol The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself. CHARLES DICKENS, Bleak House The appearance presented by the streets of London an hour before sunrise, on a summer's morning, is most striking even to the few whose unfortunate pursuits of pleasure, or scarcely less unfortunate pursuits of business, cause them to be well acquainted with the scene. There is an air of cold, solitary desolation about the noiseless streets which we are accustomed to see thronged at other times by a busy, eager crowd, and over the quiet, closely-shut buildings, which throughout the day are swarming with life and bustle, that is very impressive. CHARLES DICKENS, Sketches by Boz The best way to lengthen out our days is to walk steadily and with a purpose. CHARLES DICKENS, attributed, A Dictionary of Thoughts It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade. CHARLES DICKENS, Great Expectations My dear if you could give me a cup of tea to clear my muddle of a head I should better understand your affairs. CHARLES DICKENS, Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy There is a kind of sleep that steals upon us sometimes , which, while it holds the body prisoner, does not free the mind from a sense of things about it, and enable it to ramble as it pleases. So far as an overpowering heaviness, a prostration of strength, and an utter inability to control our thoughts or power of motion can be called sleep, this is it; and yet we have a consciousness of all that is going on about us, and even if we dream, words which are really spoken, or sounds which really exist at the moment, accommodate themselves with surprising readiness to our visions, until reality and imagination become so strangely blended that it is afterwards almost a matter of impossibility to separate the two. CHARLES DICKENS, Oliver Twist Accepting, then, the years of solitude as perfectly inevitable, one must consider how to pass them, how to keep one's self occupied and amused. CHARLES DICKENS, Household Words: A Weekly Journal I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul. CHARLES DICKENS, A Tale of Two Cities We do not believe in great stupidity as a common natural gift; doubtless, it sometimes is so; but as seen among grown-up people, it is often artificial.