Charles Dickens Quotes

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"Ghost of the Future," he exclaimed, "I fear you more than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me?"

Charles Dickens
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.

Charles Dickens
There was a little plate of hothouse nectarines on the table, and there was another of grapes, and another of sponge-cakes, and there was a bottle of light wine... 'This is my frugal breakfast... Give me my peach, my cup of coffee, and my claret.'

Charles Dickens
He'd be sharper than a serpent's tooth, if he wasn't as dull as ditch water.
Fanny Cleaver

Charles Dickens
Whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do it well; whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself completely; in great aims and in small I have always thoroughly been in earnest.

Charles Dickens
Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, Right Reverends and Wrong Reverends of every order. Dead, men and women, born with Heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around us every day.

Charles Dickens
"Are you in pain, dear mother?" "I think there's a pain somewhere in the room," said Mrs. Gradgrind, "but I couldn't positively say that I have got it."

Charles Dickens
He was a strange boy to be sure. There was always some ground of probability and likelihood mingled with his absurd behavior. That was the best of it.

Charles Dickens
It always grieves me to contemplate the initiation of children into the ways of life when they are scarcely more than infants. It checks their confidence and simplicity, two of the best qualities that heaven gives them, and demands that they share our sorrows before they are capable of entering into our enjoyments.

Charles Dickens
When the moon shines very brilliantly, a solitude and stillness seem to proceed from her that influence even crowded places full of life.

Charles Dickens
Take Time as a midge slung high and dry, and steady as a rock over a boiling, bubbling, crashing, Niagara of a waterfall beneath. Perfectly inert and stationary is this old myth. He does not measure us. He wants us not. He never interferes with us. We want him; we measure him; we interfere with him.

Charles Dickens
She forgot to be shy at the moment, in honestly warning him away from the sunken wreck he had a dream of raising; and looked at him with eyes which assuredly, in association with her patient face, her fragile figure, her spare dress, and the wind and rain, did not turn him from his purpose of helping her.

Charles Dickens
'Who will wonder that Barbara had a headache, or that Barbara's mother was disposed to be cross, or that she slightly underrated Astley's, and thought the clown was older than they had taken him to be last night? Kit was not surprised to hear her say so—not he. He had already had a misgiving that the inconstant actors in that dazzling vision had been doing the same thing the night before last, and would do it again that night, and the next, and for weeks and months to come, though he would not be there. Such is the difference between yesterday and today. We are all going to the play, or coming home from it.'

Charles Dickens
Under none of the accredited ghostly circumstances, and environed by none of the conventional ghostly surroundings, did I first make acquaintance with the house which is the subject of this Christmas piece. I saw it in the daylight, with the sun upon it. There was no wind, no rain, no lightning, no thunder, no awful or unwonted circumstance, of any kind, to heighten its effect.

Charles Dickens
She writhes under her life. A woman more angry, passionate, reckless, and revengeful never lived.

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
There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.

Charles Dickens
We are all children of one great mother, Nature.

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

Charles Dickens
He was by no means opposed to hard labour on principle, for he would work away at a cricket-match by the day together, - running, and catching, and batting, and bowling, and revelling in toil which would exhaust a galley-slave.

Charles Dickens
A silent look of affection and regard when all other eyes are turned coldly away-the consciousness that we possess the sympathy and affection of one being when all others have deserted us-is a hold, a stay, a comfort, in the deepest affliction, which no wealth could purchase, or power bestow.

Charles Dickens
I thought it very touching to see these two women, coarse and shabby and beaten, so united; to see what they could be to one another; to see how they felt for one another, how the heart of each to each was softened by the hard trials of their lives. I think the best side of such people is almost hidden from us. What the poor are to the poor is little known, excepting to themselves and God.

Charles Dickens
We all draw a little and compose a little, and none of us have any idea of time or money.

Charles Dickens
It had grown darker as they talked, and the wind was sawing and the sawdust was whirling outside paler windows. The underlying churchyard was already settling into deep dim shade, and the shade was creeping up to the housetops among which they sat. "As if," said Eugene, "as if the churchyard ghosts were rising."

Charles Dickens
The water of the fountain ran, the swift river ran, the day ran into evening, so much life in the city ran into death according to rule, time and tide waited for no man, the rats were sleeping close together in their dark holes again, the Fancy Ball was lighted up at supper, all things ran their course.

Charles Dickens