Charles Dickens Quotes - Page 25

• it is a principle of his that no man who was not a true gentleman at heart, ever was, since the world began, a true gentleman in manner. He says, no varnish can hide the grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself.

  Charles Dickens

  Heart, Men, Expectations

  Charles Dickens (2016). “British Classics: Great Expectations”, p.148, The Planet

  66 Copy quote

• 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.

  Charles Dickens

  Lying, Sadness, Boys

  Charles Dickens (2015). “Oliver Twist: Classic English Literature”, p.144, 谷月社

  8 Copy quote

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

  Charles Dickens

  Couple, Hands, People

  Charles Dickens (1995). “The Letters of Charles Dickens”

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• I think the Romans must have aggravated one another very much, with their noses. Perhaps, they became the restless people they were, in consequence.

  Charles Dickens

  Thinking, People, Noses

  Charles Dickens (1872). “A Cyclopedia of the Best Thoughts of Charles Dickens”, p.337

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• Without strong affection, and humanity of heart, and gratitude to that Being whose code is mercy, and whose great attribute is benevolence to all things that breathe, true happiness can never be attained.

  Charles Dickens

  Happiness, Gratitude, Strong

  Charles Dickens (1839). “Oliver Twist; Or, the Parish Boy's Progress”, p.364

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• I can see others in the sunlight; I can see our boats' crews and our athletic young men on the glistening water, or speckled with the moving lights of sunlit leaves; but I myself am always in the shadow looking on. Not unsympathetically, - God forbid! - but looking on alone, much as I looked at Sylvia from the shadows of the ruined house, or looked at the red gleam shining through the farmer's windows, and listened to the fall of dancing feet, when all the ruin was dark that night in the quadrangle.

  Charles Dickens

  Nature, Moving, Fall

  Charles Dickens (2014). “Hard Times (And Other Stories)”, p.595, Jazzybee Verlag

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• As I said just now, the world has gone past me. I don't blame it; but I no longer understand it. Tradesmen are not the same as they used to be, apprentices are not the same, business is not the same, business commodities are not the same. Seven-eighths of my stock is old-fashioned. I am an old-fashioned man in an old-fashioned shop, in a street that is not the same as I remember it. I have fallen behind the time, and am too old to catch it again.

  Charles Dickens

  Character, Past, Men

  Charles Dickens (1867). “Charles Dickens's works. Charles Dickens ed. [18 vols. of a 21 vol. set. Wanting A child's history of England; Christmas stories; The mystery of Edwin Drood].”, p.25

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• Indeed the worthy housewife was of such a capricious nature, that she not only attained a higher pitch of genius than Macbeth, in respect of her ability to be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, loyal and neutral in an instant, but would sometimes ring the changes backwards and forwards on all possible moods and flights in one short quarter of an hour; performing, as it were, a kind of triple bob major on the peal of instruments in the female belfry, with a skilfulness and rapidity of execution that astonished all who heard her.

  Charles Dickens

  Wise, Character, Interesting

  4 Copy quote

• You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. Stick to Facts, sir!

  Charles Dickens

  Animal, Mind, Facts

  Charles Dickens (1867). “Barnaby Rudge: And, Hard Times”, p.375

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• Let us leave our old friend in one of those moments of unmixed happiness which, if we seek them, there are ever some, to cheer our transitory existence here. There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast.

  Charles Dickens

  Cheer, Dark, Light

  Charles Dickens (1838). “The posthumous papers of the Pickwick Club”, p.607

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• I looked at the stars, and considered how awful it would be for a man to turn his face up to them as he froze to death, and see no help or pity in all the glittering multitude.

  Charles Dickens

  Stars, Men, Would Be

  Charles Dickens (2012). “Great Expectations Thrift Study Edition”, p.38, Courier Corporation

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• What an immense impression Paris made upon me. It is the most extraordinary place in the world!

  Charles Dickens

  Paris, World, Made

  Charles Dickens, Jenny Hartley (2012). “The Selected Letters of Charles Dickens”, p.136, Oxford University Press

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• 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

  Beautiful, Nature, Winter

  Charles Dickens (1867). “The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit”, p.125

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• Give me a moment, because I like to cry for joy. It's so delicious, John dear, to cry for joy.

  Charles Dickens

  Giving, Joy, Cry

  Charles Dickens (2016). “Our Mutual Friend”, p.672, Xist Publishing

  11 Copy quote

• There can't be a quarrel without two parties, and I won't be one. I will be a friend to you in spite of you. So now you know what you've got to expect

  Charles Dickens

  Party, Two, Quarrels

  Charles Dickens (1850). “The Personal History of David Copperfield”, p.439

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• It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

  Charles Dickens

  Inspirational, Time, Cities

  A Tale of Two Cities bk. 1, ch. 1 (1859)

  48 Copy quote

• He was sailing over a boundless expanse of sea, with a blood-red sky above, and the angry waters, lashed into fury beneath, boiling and eddying up, on every side. There was another vessel before them, toiling and labouring in the howling storm: her canvas fluttering in ribbons from the mast.

  Charles Dickens

  Blood, Sea, Sky

  Charles Dickens (1838). “The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club”, p.148

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• And therefore, Uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that [Christmas] has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!

  Charles Dickens

  Uncles, Believe, Gold

  Charles Dickens (1858). “A Christmas Carol”, p.6

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• 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

  Writing, Hands, Would Be

  Charles Dickens (2006). “David Copperfield”, p.400, Penguin

  6 Copy quote

• When the wind is blowing and the sleet or rain is driving against the dark windows, I love to sit by the fire, thinking of what I have read in books of voyage and travel.

  Charles Dickens

  Rain, Book, Dark

  Charles Dickens (2015). “The Long Voyage”, p.3, Booklassic

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• Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years it was a splendid laugh!

  Charles Dickens

  Men, Years, Practice

  Charles Dickens (1983). “A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story of Christmas”, p.91, Library of Alexandria

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• "Hope, you see, Wal'r," said the Captain, sagely, "Hope. It's that as animates you. Hope is a buoy, for which you overhaul your Little Warbler, sentimental diwision, but Lord, my lad, like any other buoy, it only floats; it can't be steered nowhere. Along with the figure-head of Hope,' said the Captain, 'there's a anchor; but what's the good of my having a anchor, if I can't find no bottom to let it go in?"

  Charles Dickens

  Inspirational, Anchors, Let It Go

  Charles Dickens (1872). “The Works of Charles Dickens”, p.284

  6 Copy quote

• There is a passion for hunting something deeply implanted in the human breast.

  Charles Dickens

  Passion, Hunting, Breasts

  Oliver Twist ch. 10 (1838)

  23 Copy quote

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

  Charles Dickens

  Truth, Greatness, Men

  Bleak House ch. 28 (1853)

  10 Copy quote

• Some women's faces are, in their brightness, a prophecy; and some, in their sadness, a history.

  Charles Dickens

  Sadness, Brightness, Faces

  6 Copy quote

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