Charles Dickens Quotes

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

Charles Dickens
But the sun itself, however beneficent, generally, was less kind to Coketown than hard frost, and rarely looked intently into any of its closer regions without engendering more death than life. So does the eye of Heaven itself become an evil eye, when incapable or sordid hands are interposed between it and the thing it looks upon to bless.

Charles Dickens
"In case anything turned up," which was his [Mr. Micawber's] favorite expression.

Charles Dickens
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?

Charles Dickens
Mr. Dick had been for upwards of ten years endeavouring to keep King Charles the First out of the Memorial; but he had been constantly getting into it, and was there now.

Charles Dickens
You'll find us rough, sir, but you'll find us ready.

Charles Dickens
I am a neat hand at cookery, and I'll tell you what I knocked up for my Christmas-eve dinner in the Library Cart. I knocked up a beefsteak-pudding for one, with two kidneys, a dozen oysters, and a couple of mushrooms thrown in. It's a pudding to put a man in good humour with everything, except the two bottom buttons of his waistcoat.

Charles Dickens
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.

Charles Dickens
Time has been lost and opportunity thrown away, but I am yet a young man, and may retrieve it.

Charles Dickens
She means well, said Mr Jarndyce, hastily. The wind's in the east. It was in the north, sir, as we came down, observed Richard. My dear Rick, said Mr Jarndyce, poking the fire, I'll take an oath it's either in the east, or going to be. I am always conscious of an uncomfortable sensation now and then when the wind is blowing in the east.

Charles Dickens
We went our several ways," said Lady Dedlock, "and had little in common even before we agreed to differ. It is to be regretted, I suppose, but it could not be helped.

Charles Dickens
Now, I ain't alone, as you may think I am. 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 is in wain for a boy to attempt to hide himself from that young man. A boy may lock his door, may be warm in bed, may tuck himself up, may draw the clothes over his head, may think himself comfortable and safe, but that young man will softly creep and creep his way to him and tear him open.

Charles Dickens
It was a turkey! He could never have stood upon his legs, that bird! He would have snapped 'em off short in a minute, like sticks of sealing wax.

Charles Dickens
When men are about to commit, or sanction the commission of some injustice, it is not uncommon for them to express pity for the object either of that or some parallel proceeding, and to feel themselves, at the time, quite virtuous and moral, and immensely superior to those who express no pity at all. This is a kind of upholding of faith above works, and is very comfortable.

Charles Dickens
The unities, sir…are a completeness—a kind of universal dovetailedness with regard to place and time.
Mr Curdle

Charles Dickens
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.

Charles Dickens
Let sleeping dogs lie—who wants to rouse 'em?

Charles Dickens
The have-his-carcase, next to the perpetual motion, is vun of the blessedest things as wos ever made.
Sam Weller

Charles Dickens
He's tough, ma'am,—tough is J. B.; tough and devilish sly.

Charles Dickens
The last trumpet ever to be sounded shall blow even algebra to wreck.

Charles Dickens
Look round and round upon this bare bleak plain, and see even here, upon a winter's day, how beautiful the shadows are! Alas! It is the nature of their kind to be so. The loveliest things in life... are but shadows; and they come and go, and change and fade away, as rapidly as these.

Charles Dickens
Buy an annuity cheap, and make your life interesting to yourself and everybody else that watches the speculation.

Charles Dickens
Can I view thee panting, lying On thy stomach, without sighing; Can I unmoved see thee dying On a log Expiring frog!

Charles Dickens
In the Destroyer's steps there spring up bright creations that defy his power, and his dark path becomes a way of light to Heaven.

Charles Dickens
The secret was such an old one now, had so grown into me and become a part of myself, that I could not tear it away.

Charles Dickens
It is sometimes called the City of Magnificent Distances, but it might with greater propriety be termed the City of Magnificent Intentions.
Of Washington. D.C.

Charles Dickens
One always begins to forgive a place as soon as it's left behind.

Charles Dickens
Oh, but he was a tightfisted hand at the grindstone. Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.

Charles Dickens
There are strings…in the human heart that had better not be wibrated.
Mr Tappertit

Charles Dickens
Of little worth as life is when we misuse it, it is worth that effort. It would cost nothing to lay down if it were not.

Charles Dickens