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With throbbing veins and burning skin, eyes wild and heavy, thoughts hurried and disordered, he felt as though the light were a reproach, and shrunk involuntarily from the day as if he were some foul and hideous thing.
Charles Dickens
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When men are about to commit, or sanction the commission of some injustice, it is not uncommon for them to express pity for the object either of that or some parallel proceeding, and to feel themselves, at the time, quite virtuous and moral, and immensely superior to those who express no pity at all. This is a kind of upholding of faith above works, and is very comfortable.
Charles Dickens
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One disagreeable result of whispering is that it seems to evoke an atmosphere of silence, haunted by the ghosts of sound - strange cracks and tickings, the rustling of garments that have no substance in them, and the tread of dreadful feet that would leave no mark on the sea-sand or the winter snow.
Charles Dickens
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Time and tide will wait for no man, saith the adage. But all men have to wait for time and tide.
Charles Dickens
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Never imitate the eccentricities of genius, but toil after it in its truer flights. They are not so easy to follow, but they lead to higher regions.
Charles Dickens
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The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the God of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and in short you are for ever floored.
Charles Dickens
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Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.
Charles Dickens
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As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like, were unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father's, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription, "Also Georgiana Wife of the Above", I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly.
Charles Dickens
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In truth, no men on earth can cheer like Englishmen, who do so rally one another's blood and spirit when they cheer in earnest, that the stir is like the rush of their whole history, with all its standards waving at once, from Saxon Alfred's downwards.
Charles Dickens
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They are so filthy and bestial that no honest man would admit one into his house for a water-closet doormat.
Charles Dickens
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My dear young lady, crime, like death, is not confined to the old and withered alone. The youngest and fairest are too often its chosen victims.
Charles Dickens
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Tongue; well that's a wery good thing when it an't a woman.
Charles Dickens
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That vague kind of penitence which holidays awaken next morning.
Charles Dickens
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And it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!
Charles Dickens
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"Peggotty!" repeated Miss Betsey, with some indignation. "Do you mean to say, child, that any human being has gone into a Christian church, and got herself named Peggotty?"
Charles Dickens
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The present representative of the Dedlocks is an excellent master.He supposes all his dependents to be utterly bereft of individual characters, intentions or opinions, and is persuaded that he was born to supersede the necessity of their having any.If he were to make a discovery to the contrary, he would be simply stunned - would never recover himself, most likely, except to gasp and die.
Charles Dickens
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United metropolitan improved hot muffin and crumpet baking and punctual delivery company.
Charles Dickens
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If the law supposes that,' said Mr Bumble...' the law is an ass - an idiot.
Charles Dickens
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The wind's in the east. . . . I am always conscious of an uncomfortable sensation now and then when the wind is blowing in the east.
Charles Dickens
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If there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.
Charles Dickens
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On the eve of long voyages or an absence of many years, friends who are tenderly attached will seperate with the usual look, the usual pressure of the hand, planning one final interview for the morrow, while each well knows that it is but a poor feint to save the pain of uttering that one word, and the meeting will never be. Should possibilities be worse to bear than certainties?
Charles Dickens
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Captain Cuttle, like all mankind, little knew how much hope had survived within him under discouragement, until he felt its death-shock.
Charles Dickens
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"I am not afeard, my Heart's-delight," resumed the Captain. "There's been most uncommon bad weather in them latitudes, there's no denyin', and they have drove and drove and been beat off, may be t'other side the world. But the ship's a good ship, and the lad's a good lad; and it ain't easy, thank the Lord," the Captain made a little bow, "to break up hearts of oak, whether they're in brigs or buzzums."
Charles Dickens
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A blight had fallen on the trees and shrubs; and the wind, at length beginning to break the unnatural stillness that had prevailed all day, sighed heavily from time to time, as though foretelling in grief the ravages of the coming storm. The bat skimmed in fantastic flights through the heavy air, and the ground was alive with crawling things, whose instinct brought them forth to swell and fatten in the rain.
Charles Dickens
