Charles Dickens Quotes

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Rich folks may ride on camels, but it a'n't so easy for 'em to see out of a needle's eye [Sairey Gamp].

Charles Dickens
We need be careful how we deal with those about us, when every death carries to some small circle of survivors, thoughts of so much omitted, and so little done- of so many things forgotten, and so many more which might have been repaired! There is no remorse so deep as that which is unavailing; if we would be spared its tortures, let us remember this, in time.

Charles Dickens
And therefore, Uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that [Christmas] has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!

Charles Dickens
I have known him come home to supper with a flood of tears, and a declaration that nothing was now left but a jail; and go to bed making a calculation of the expense of putting bow-windows to the house, 'in case anything turned up,' which was his favourite expression.
Of Mr Micawber

Charles Dickens
Houses were knocked down... enormous heaps of earth and clay thrown up; buildings that were undermined and shaking, propped up by great beams of wood... The yet unfinished and unopened Railway was in progress.

Charles Dickens
I have heard it said that as we keep our birthdays when we are alive, so the ghosts of dead people, who are not easy in their graves, keep the day they died upon.

Charles Dickens
Don't be afraid! We won't make an author of you, while there's an honest trade to be learnt, or brick-making to turn to.

Charles Dickens
I call them the Wards in Jarndyce. They are caged up with all the others. With Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, Dust, Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags, Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and Spinach!
Miss Flite's birds

Charles Dickens
Kent, sir—everybody knows Kent—apples, cherries, hops, and women.
Jingle

Charles Dickens
So does a whole world, with all its greatnesses and littlenesses, lie in a twinkling star. And as mere human knowledge can split a ray of light and analyse the manner of its composition, so, sublimer intelligences may read in the feeble shining of this earth of ours, every thought and act, every vice and virtue, of every responsible creature on it.

Charles Dickens
They don't mind it; it's a regular holiday to them—all porter and skittles.

Charles Dickens
She'll wish there was more, and that's the great art o' letter-writin'.

Charles Dickens
"Hard," replied the Dodger. "As nails," added Charley Bates.

Charles Dickens
Tongue; well that's a wery good thing when it an't a woman's.

Charles Dickens
Subdue your appetites, my dears, and you've conquered human natur'. That is the way to inculcate strength of mind.

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

Charles Dickens
When they took a young man into Tellson's London house, they hid him somewhere till he was old. They kept him in a dark place, like a cheese, until he had the full Tellson flavour and blue-mould upon him. Then only was he permitted to be seen, spectacularly poring over large books, and casting his breeches and gaiters into the general weight of the establishment.

Charles Dickens
It is well for a man to respect his own vocation whatever it is and to think himself bound to uphold it and to claim for it the respect it deserves

Charles Dickens
Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving HOW NOT TO DO IT.

Charles Dickens
You touch some of the reasons for my going, not for my staying away.

Charles Dickens
Did it ever strike you on such a morning as this that drowning would be happiness and peace?

Charles Dickens
Her contempt for me was so strong, that it became infectious, and I caught it.

Charles Dickens
I am no more annoyed when I think of the expression, than I should be annoyed by a man's opinion of a picture of mine, who had no eye for pictures; or of a piece of music of mine, who had no ear for music.

Charles Dickens
The New Year, like an Infant Heir to the whole world, was waited for, with welcomes, presents, and rejoicings.

Charles Dickens
All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself. Surely a curious thing. That I should innocently take a bad half-crown of somebody else's manufacture, is reasonable enough; but that I should knowingly reckon the spurious coin of my own make, as good money!

Charles Dickens
'Not to put too fine a point upon it'—a favourite apology for plain-speaking with Mr Snagsby.

Charles Dickens
And thus ever by day and night, under the sun and under the stars, climbing the dusty hills and toiling along the weary plains, journeying by land and journeying by sea, coming and going so strangely, to meet and to act and react on one another, move all we restless travellers through the pilgrimage of life.

Charles Dickens
He had used the word in its Pickwickian sense…He had merely considered him a humbug in a Pickwickian point of view.
Mr Blotton

Charles Dickens
Sir, My pa requests me to write to you, the doctors considering it doubtful whether he will ever recuvver the use of his legs which prevents his holding a pen.
Fanny Squeers

Charles Dickens
"Time was," he said, "when it was well to watch even your rising little star, and know in what quarter there were clouds, to shadow you if needful. But a planet has arisen, and you are lost in its light."

Charles Dickens