Charles Dickens

“(Carmine Crocco) In such a crowd, so numerous and composed of such heterogeneous elements, it might have appeared almost absurd to look for discipline; but perfect discipline there was, for, whatever his other qualities might be, Crocco most undoubtedly was a "ruler of men". His word in that band was law, and the punishment of disaffection was death.”

“There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast.”

“I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don't trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance, any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it.”

“Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has many - not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”

“How much longer are we English to assist foreign nations in misunderstand us, by holding up that ridiculous lay-figure of our race known by the style and title of John Bull?”

“If there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.”

“Resisting the slow touch of a frozen finger tracing out my spine.”

“There is a wisdom of the head, and a wisdom of the heart.”

“The dignity of his office is never impaired by the absence of efforts on his part to maintain it.”

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.”

“I used to sit, think, think, thinking, till I felt as lonesome as a kitten in a wash–house copper with the lid on.”

“Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own; and from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, it is but a succession of changes so gentle and easy that we can scarcely mark their progress.”

“The civility which money will purchase, is rarely extended to those who have none.”

“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.”

“Grief never mended no broken bones, and as good people’s wery scarce, what I says is, make the most on ’em.”

“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.”

“Minerva House … was "a finishing establishment for young ladies," where some twenty girls of the ages from thirteen to nineteen inclusive, acquired a smattering of everything and a knowledge of nothing.”

“Fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of friendship; and pass the rosy wine.”

“What is the odds so long as the fire of soul is kindled at the taper of conwiviality, and the wing of friendship never moults a feather! What is the odds so long as the spirit is expanded by means of rosy wine, and the present moment is the least happiest of our existence!”

“The men who learn endurance, are they who call the whole world, brother.”

“She's the ornament of her sex.”

“Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.”

“Fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of friendship; and pass the rosy wine.”

“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.”

“Send forth the child and childish man together, and blush for the pride that libels our own old happy state, and gives its title to an ugly and distorted image.”

“The civility which money will purchase, is rarely extended to those who have none.”

“The very dogs were all asleep, and the flies, drunk with moist sugar in the grocer’s shop, forgot their wings and briskness, and baked to death in dusty corners of the window.”

“We are so very 'umble.”

“In mind, she was of a strong and vigorous turn, having from her earliest youth devoted herself with uncommon ardour to the study of the law; not wasting her speculations upon its eagle flights, which are rare, but tracing it attentively through all the slippery and eel-like crawlings in which it commonly pursues its way.”

“An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself.”

“Under an accumulation of staggerers, no man can be considered a free agent. No man knocks himself down; if his destiny knocks him down, his destiny must pick him up again.”

“He had but one eye, and the popular prejudice runs in favor of two.”

“It was a maxim with Mr. Brass that the habit of paying compliments kept a man’s tongue oiled without any expense; and that, as that useful member ought never to grow rusty or creak in turning on its hinges in the case of a practitioner of the law, in whom it should be always glib and easy, he lost few opportunities of improving himself by the utterance of handsome speeches and eulogistic expressions.”

“There are only two styles of portrait painting; the serious and the smirk.”

“In love of home, the love of country has its rise.”

“A day wasted on others is not wasted on one's self.”

“That vague kind of penitence which holidays awaken next morning.”

“You don't carry in your countenance a letter of recommendation.”

“If there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.”

“Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!”

“Did you ever taste beer?" "I had a sip of it once," said the small servant. "Here's a state of things!" cried Mr Swiveller, raising his eyes to the ceiling. "She never tasted it — it can't be tasted in a sip!”

“A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.”

“Before I go," he said, and paused -- "I may kiss her?"”

“You will not have forgotten that it was a maxim with Foxey — our revered father, gentlemen — "Always suspect everybody." That's the maxim to go through life with!”

“Any man may be in good spirits and good temper when he's well dressed. There ain't much credit in that.”

“He’s tough, ma’am,—tough is J. B.; tough and devilish sly.”

“This is a world of action, and not for moping and droning in.”

“The age of chivalry is past. Bores have succeeded to dragons.”

“I want to know what it says," he answered, looking steadily in her face. "The sea Floy, what is it that it keeps on saying?”

“It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, and furnishes a complete answer to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the human species, that every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last.”

“Wal'r, my boy," replied the Captain, "in the Proverbs of Solomon you will find the following words, 'May we never want a friend in need, nor a bottle to give him!' When found, make a note of.”

“He would make a lovely corpse.”

“Cows are my passion.”

“Little Red Riding Hood was my first love. I felt that if I could have married Little Red Riding Hood, I should have known perfect bliss.”

“The bearings of this observation lays in the application on it.”

“A boy's story is the best that is ever told.”

“If you could see my legs when I take my boots off, you'd form some idea of what unrequited affection is.”

“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.”

“…vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!”

“To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart.”

“Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. This scarecrow of a suit, has, in course of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what it means. The parties to it understand it least; but it has been observed that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five minutes, without coming to total disagreement as to all the premises.”

“Renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly.”

“[T]he evil of it is that it is a world wrapped up in too much jeweller’s cotton and fine wool, and cannot hear the rushing of the larger worlds, and cannot see them as they circle round the sun. It is a deadened world, and its growth is sometimes unhealthy for want of air.”

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

“He is a gentleman of strict conscience, disdainful of all littleness and meanness and ready on the shortest notice to die any death you may please to mention rather than give occasion for the least impeachment of his integrity. He is an honourable, obstinate, truthful, high-spirited, intensely prejudiced, perfectly unreasonable man.”

“Send forth the child and childish man together, and blush for the pride that libels our own old happy state, and gives its title to an ugly and distorted image.”

“"Oh, dear no, miss," he said. "This is a London particular." I had never heard of such a thing. "A fog, miss," said the young gentleman. "Oh, indeed!" said I.”

“Although a skillful flatterer is a most delightful companion if you have him all to yourself, his taste becomes very doubtful when he takes to complimenting other people.”

“I expect a judgment. Shortly.”

“There are not a few among the disciples of charity who require, in their vocation, scarcely less excitement than the votaries of pleasure in theirs.”

““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.””

“Bring in the bottled lightning, a clean tumbler, and a corkscrew.”

“It is said that the children of the very poor are not brought up, but dragged up.”

“Let us be moral. Let us contemplate existence.”

“I don’t feel any vulgar gratitude to you. I almost feel as if you ought to be grateful to me, for giving you the opportunity of enjoying the luxury of generosity. I know you like it. For anything I can tell, I may have come into the world expressly for the purpose of increasing your stock of happiness.”

“The one great principle of English law is to make business for itself.”

“I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free. Mankind will surely not deny to Harold Skimpole what it concedes to the butterflies!”

“Dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine.”

“Not to put too fine a point upon it.”

“I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the scantiness of my resources and the difficulty of my life... I know that, but for the mercy of God, I might easily have been, for any care that was taken of me, a little robber or a vagabond.”

“He wos wery good to me, he wos!”

“When a man bleeds inwardly, it is a dangerous thing for himself; but when he laughs inwardly, it bodes no good to other people.”

“He had a cane, he had an eye-glass, he had a snuff-box, he had rings, he had wristbands, he had everything but any touch of nature; he was not like youth, he was not like age, he was not like anything in the world but a model of deportment.”

“Christmas time! That man must be a misanthrope indeed, in whose breast something like a jovial feeling is not roused - in whose mind some pleasant associations are not awakened - by the recurrence of Christmas.”

“Mr. Chadband is a large yellow man, with a fat smile, and a general appearance of having a good deal of train oil in his system.”

“Most men are individuals no longer so far as their business, its activities, or its moralities are concerned. They are not units but fractions.”

“A loving heart is the truest wisdom.”

“What is peace? Is it war? No. Is it strife? No. Is it lovely, and gentle, and beautiful, and pleasant, and serene, and joyful? Oh, yes! Therefore, my friends, I wish for peace, upon you and upon yours.”

“You are a human boy, my young friend. A human boy. O glorious to be a human boy!... O running stream of sparkling joy To be a soaring human boy!”

“'Don't you be afraid of hurting the boy,' he says.”

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

“It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations.”

“Christmas time! That man must be a misanthrope indeed, in whose breast something like a jovial feeling is not roused—in whose mind some pleasant associations are not awakened—by the recurrence of Christmas. There are people who will tell you that Christmas is not to them what it used to be; that each succeeding Christmas has found some cherished hope, or happy prospect, of the year before, dimmed or passed away; that the present only serves to remind them of reduced circumstances and straitened incomes—of the feasts they once bestowed on hollow friends, and of the cold looks that meet them now, in adversity and misfortune. Never heed such dismal reminiscences. There are few men who have lived long enough in the world who cannot call up such thoughts any day of the year. Then do not select the merriest of the three hundred and sixty-five for your doleful recollections, but draw your chair nearer the blazing fire—fill the glass and send round the song—and if your room be smaller than it was a dozen years ago, or if your glass be filled with reeking punch, instead of sparkling wine, put a good face on the matter, and empty it offhand, and fill another, and troll off the old ditty you used to sing, and thank God it’s no worse.”

“Never have a Mission, my dear child.”

“Take care, while you are young, that you can think in those days, 'I never whitened a hair of her dear head, I never marked a sorrowful line in her face!' For of all the many things that you can think when you are a man, you had better have that by you, Woolwich!”

“The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself.”

“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.”

“Your sex have such a surprising animosity against one another when you do differ.”

“If there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.”

“We are not rich in the bank, but we have always prospered and we have quite enough. I never walk out with my husband but I hear the people bless him. I never lie down at night, but I know that in the course of that day he has alleviated pain and soothed some fellow creature in the time of need. Is not this to be rich?”

“Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!”

“There is a wisdom of the Head, and … there is a wisdom of the Heart.”

“I am the only child of parents who weighed, measured, and priced everything; for whom what could not be weighed, measured, and priced, had no existence.”

“The Circumlocution Office was (as everybody knows without being told) the most important Department under Government. No public business of any kind could possibly be done at any time without the acquiescence of the Circumlocution Office. Its finger was in the largest public pie, and in the smallest public tart. It was equally impossible to do the plainest right and to undo the plainest wrong without the express authority of the Circumlocution Office.”

“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.”

“The Barnacles were a very high family, and a very large family. They were dispersed all over the public offices, and held all sorts of public places. Either the nation was under a load of obligation to the Barnacles, or the Barnacles were under a load of obligation to the nation. It was not quite unanimously settled which; the Barnacles having their opinion, the nation theirs.”

“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.”

“I revere the memory of Mr. F. as an estimable man and most indulgent husband, only necessary to mention Asparagus and it appeared or to hint at any little delicate thing to drink and it came like magic in a pint bottle; it was not ecstasy but it was comfort.”

“"Papa is a preferable mode of address," observed Mrs General. "Father is rather vulgar, my dear. The word Papa, besides, gives a pretty form to the lips. Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes, and prism are all very good words for the lips: especially prunes and prism. You will find it serviceable, in the formation of a demeanour, if you sometimes say to yourself in company — on entering a room, for instance — Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism, prunes and prism.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of friendship; and pass the rosy wine.”

“Once a gentleman, and always a gentleman.”

“Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded together...”

“Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule.”

“Money and goods are certainly the best of references.”

“Professionally he declines and falls, and as a friend he drops into poetry.”

“I want to be something so much worthier than the doll in the doll's house.”

“I don't care whether I am a Minx or a Sphinx.”

“And if it's proud to have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts," Miss Jenny struck in, flushed, "she is proud.”

“The first rule of business is: Do other men for they would do you.”

“That's the state to live and die in!...R-r-rich!”

“We must scrunch or be scrunched.”

“'No one is useless in this world,' retorted the Secretary, 'who lightens the burden of it for any one else.'”

“Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true.”

“Be natural my children. For the writer that is natural has fulfilled all the rules of art."”

“The unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I love her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection .”

“Great men are seldom over-scrupulous in the arrangement of their attire.”

“And a beautiful world we live in, when it is possible, and when many other such things are possible, and not only possible, but done-- done, see you!-- under that sky there, every day.”

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

“I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”

“It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations.”

“But I am thinking like a lover, or like an ass: which I suppose is pretty nearly the same.”

“I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free.”

“The two stand in the fast-thinning throng of victims, but they speak as if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, heart to heart, these two children of the Universal Mother, else so wide apart and differing, have come together on the dark highway, to repair home together and to rest in her bosom.”

“Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!”

“Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has many - not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”

“Christmas time! That man must be a misanthrope indeed, in whose breast something like a jovial feeling is not roused - in whose mind some pleasant associations are not awakened - by the recurrence of Christmas.”

“The men who learn endurance, are they who call the whole world, brother.”

“The first rule of business is: Do other men for they would do you.”

“Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!”

“Things that are changed or gone will come back as they used to be.”

“Before I go," he said, and paused -- "I may kiss her?"”

“The one great principle of English law is to make business for itself.”

“I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free.”

“Charity begins at home, and justice begins next door.”

“A loving heart is the truest wisdom.”

“The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.”

“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to anyone else.”

“We forge the chains we wear in life.”

“The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.”

“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.”

“Poetry makes life what lights and music do the stage.”

“Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.”

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

“Life is made of ever so many partings welded together.”

“Regrets are the natural property of grey hairs.”

“Charity begins at home, and justice begins next door.”

“I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”

“Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true.”

“Vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!”

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

“Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism, are all very good words for the lips.”

“The boy was lying, fast asleep, on a rude bed upon the floor; so pale with anxiety, and sadness, and the closeness of his prison, that he looked like death; not death as it shews in shroud and coffin, but in the guise it wears when life has just departed; when a young and gentle spirit has, but an instant, fled to Heaven: and the gross air of the world has not had time to breathe upon the changing dust it hallowed.”

“That sort of half sigh, which, accompanied by two or three slight nods of the head, is pity's small change in general society.”

“Anything for the quick life, as the man said when he took the situation at the lighthouse.”

“The first rule of business is: Do other men for they would do you.”

“The age of chivalry is past. Bores have succeeded to dragons.”

“It opens the lungs, washes the countenance, exercises the eyes, and softens down the temper; so cry away.”

“For, there were many, many things he had neglected. Little matters while he was at home and surrounded by them, but things of mighty moment when he was at an immeasurable distance. There were many many blessings that he had inadequately felt, there were many trivial injuries that he had not forgiven, there was love that he had but poorly returned, there was friendship that he had too lightly prized: there were a million kind words that he might have spoken, a million kind looks that he might have given, uncountable slight easy deeds in which he might have been most truly great and good. O for a day (he would exclaim), for but one day to make amends!”

“Cows are my passion. What I have ever sighed for has been to retreat to a Swiss farm, and live entirely surrounded by cows - and china.”

“'Do you spell it with a 'V' or a 'W'?' inquired the judge. 'That depends upon the taste and fancy of the speller, my Lord'.”

“It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations.”

“'Tis love that makes the world go round, my baby.”

“I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don't trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it.”

“in a private letter to letter to Emile de la Rue on 23 October 1857”

“Credit is a system whereby a person who can not pay gets another person who can not pay to guarantee that he can pay.”

“Mr. Augustus Minns was a bachelor, of about forty as he said — of about eight-and-forty as his friends said. He was always exceedingly clean, precise, and tidy: perhaps somewhat priggish, and the most retiring man in the world.”

“Subdue your appetites, my dears, and you've conquered human nature.”

“There were two classes of created objects which he held in the deepest and most unmingled horror: they were, dogs and children. He was not unamiable, but he could at any time have viewed the execution of a dog, or the assassination of an infant, with the liveliest satisfaction. Their habits were at variance with his love of order; and his love of order, was as powerful as his love of life.”

“Oh the nerves, the nerves; the mysteries of this machine called man! Oh the little that unhinges it, poor creatures that we are!”

“To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart.”

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

“The bright old day now dawns again; the cry runs through the land,Hail to the coming time!”

“There are strings in the human heart that had better not be vibrated.”

“I am quite serious when I say that I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these United States. No man can form an adequate idea of the real meaning of the word, without coming here.”

“Great men are seldom over-scrupulous in the arrangement of their attire.”

“O let us love our occupations,And always know our proper stations.”

“There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth.”

“It was a good thing to have a couple of thousand people all rigid and frozen together, in the palm of one's hand.”

“It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations.”