Charles Dickens's Quotes

Let us be moral. Let us contemplate existence.

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

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

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

'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'.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly.

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

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

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.

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

We are so very 'umble.

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.

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.

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.

A loving heart is the truest wisdom.

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Life is made of ever so many partings welded together.

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.

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

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

Charity begins at home, and justice begins next door.

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