Charles Dickens Quotes

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"Why, what I may think after dinner," returns Mr. Jobling, "is one thing, my dear Guppy, and what I may think before dinner is another thing."

Charles Dickens
"Madam," replied Mr. Micawber, "it is my intention to register such a vow on the virgin page of the future."

Charles Dickens
It was a cold hard easterly morning when he latched the garden gate and turned away. The light snowfall which had feathered his schoolroom windows on the Thursday, still lingered in the air, and was falling white, while the wind blew black.

Charles Dickens
Still his philanthropy was of that gunpowderous sort that the difference between it and animosity was hard to determine.

Charles Dickens
Dombey sat in the corner of the darkened room in the great arm-chair by the bedside, and Son lay tucked up warm in a little basket bedstead, carefully disposed on a low settee immediately in front of the fire and close to it, as if his constitution were analogous to that of a muffin, and it was essential to toast him brown while he was very new.

Charles Dickens
Captain Cuttle, like all mankind, little knew how much hope had survived within him under discouragement, until he felt its death-shock.

Charles Dickens
"Well," said my aunt, "this is his boy - his son. He would be as like his father as it's possible to be, if he was not so like his mother, too."

Charles Dickens
It was a dagger in the haughty father's heart, an arrow in his brain, to see how the flesh and blood he could not disown clung to this obscure stranger, and he sitting by. Not that he cared to whom his daughter turned, or from whom turned away. The swift sharp agony struck through him, as he thought of what his son might do.

Charles Dickens
"I take my leave of you, Mr. Creakle, and all of you," said Mr. Mell, glancing round the room, and again patting me gently on the shoulders. "James Steerforth, the best wish I can leave you is that you may come to be ashamed of what you have done today. At present I would prefer to see you anything rather than a friend, to me, or to anyone in whom I feel an interest."

Charles Dickens
Circumstances may accumulate so strongly even against an innocent man, that directed, sharpened, and pointed, they may slay him.

Charles Dickens
"It's an old habit of mine, Wal'r," said the Captain, "any time these fifty year. When you see Ned Cuttle bite his nails, Wal'r, then you may know that Ned Cuttle's aground."

Charles Dickens
The more man knows of man, the better for the common brotherhood among men.

Charles Dickens
Never, never, before Heaven, have I thought of you but as the single, bright, pure, blessed recollection of my boyhood and my youth. Never have I from the first, and never shall I to the last, regard your part in my life, but as something sacred, never to be lightly thought of, never to be esteemed enough, never, until death, to be forgotten.

Charles Dickens
The nephew revenges himself for this, by holding his breath and terrifying his kinswoman with the dread belief that he has made up his mind to burst. Regardless of whispers and shakes, he swells and becomes discoloured, and yet again swells and becomes discoloured, until the aunt can bear it no longer, but leads him out, with no visible neck, and with his eyes going before him like a prawn's.

Charles Dickens
Detestation of the high is the involuntary homage of the low.

Charles Dickens
New thoughts and hopes were whirling through my mind, and all the colours of my life were changing.

Charles Dickens
I know that she deserves the best and purest love the heart of man can offer," said Mrs. Maylie; "I know that the devotion and affection of her nature require no ordinary return, but one that shall be deep and lasting.

Charles Dickens
Compeyson's business was the swindling, hand writing forging, stolen bank-note passing, and such-like. All sorts of traps as Compeyson could set with his head, and keep his own legs out of and get the profits from and let another man in for, was Compeyson's business. He'd no more heart than a iron file he was as cold as death, and he had the head of the Devil afore mentioned.

Charles Dickens
I know enough of the world now to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything

Charles Dickens
"Do not repine, my friends," said Mr. Pecksniff, tenderly. "Do not weep for me. It is chronic."

Charles Dickens
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
Perhaps second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, come easily off and on.

Charles Dickens
May not the complaint, that common people are above their station, often take its rise in the fact of uncommon people being below theirs?

Charles Dickens
Women can always put things in fewest words. Except when it's blowing up; and then they lengthens it out.

Charles Dickens
It is not possible to know how far the influence of any amiable, honest-hearted duty-doing man flies out into the world, but it is very possible to know how it has touched one's self in going by.

Charles Dickens
A person who can't pay, gets another person who can't pay, to guarantee that he can pay. Like a person with two wooden legs getting another person with two wooden legs, to guarantee that he has got two natural legs. It don't make either of them able to do a walking match.

Charles Dickens
It is no worse, because I write of it. It would be no better, if I stopped my most unwilling hand. Nothing can undo it; nothing can make it otherwise than as it was.

Charles Dickens
The cloud of caring for nothing, which overshadowed him with such a fatal darkness, was very rarely pierced by the light within him.

Charles Dickens
It's my old girl that advises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained.

Charles Dickens
People now call him the Golden Dustman [Mr. Boffin].

Charles Dickens