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Long may it remain in this mixed world a question not easy of decision, which is the more beautiful evidence of the Almighty's goodness, the soft white hand formed for the ministrations of sympathy and tenderness, or the rough hard hand which the heart softens, teaches, and guides in a moment.
Charles Dickens
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Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques.
Charles Dickens
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O, if the deeds of human creatures could be traced to their source, how beautiful would even death appear; for how much charity, mercy, and purified affection would be seen to have their growth in dusty graves!
Charles Dickens
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There are people enough to tread upon me in my lowly state, without my doing outrage to their feelings by possessing learning. Learning ain't for me. A person like myself had better not aspire. If he is to get on in life, he must get on 'umbly, Master Copperfield!
Charles Dickens
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One should never be ashamed to cry. Tears are rain on the dust of earth.
Charles Dickens
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Loves and Cupids took to flight afraid, and Martyrdom had no such torment in its painted history of suffering.
Charles Dickens
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We all have some experience of a feeling, that comes over us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done before, in a remote time - of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the same faces, objects, and circumstances.
Charles Dickens
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Love is in all things a most wonderful teacher.
Charles Dickens
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I had no advice, no counsel, no encouragement, no consolation, no assistance, no support, of any kind, from anyone, that I can call to mind, as I hope to go to heaven!
Charles Dickens
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Mystery and disappointment are not absolutely indispensable to the growth of love, but they are, very often, its powerful auxiliaries.
Charles Dickens
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Death may beget life, but oppression can beget nothing other than itself.
Charles Dickens
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But, tears were not the things to find their way to Mr. Bumble's soul; his heart was waterproof.
Charles Dickens
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... Natural affections and instincts, my dear sir, are the most beautiful of the Almighty's works, but like other beautiful works of His, they must be reared and fostered, or it is as natural that they should be wholly obscured, and that new feelings should usurp their place, as it is that the sweetest productions of the earth, left untended, should be choked with weeds and briers.
Charles Dickens
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The American elite is almost beyond redemption. . . . Moral relativism has set in so deeply that the gilded classes have become incapable of discerning right from wrong. Everything can be explained away, especially by journalists. Life is one great moral mush--sophistry washed down with Chardonnay. The ordinary citizens, thank goodness, still adhere to absolutes.... It is they who have saved the republic from creeping degradation while their 'betters' were derelict.
Charles Dickens
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To close the eyes, and give a seemly comfort to the apparel of the dead, is poverty's holiest touch of nature.
Charles Dickens
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The beating of my heart was so violent and wild that I felt as if my life were breaking from me.
Charles Dickens
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You anticipate what I would say, though you cannot know how earnestly I say it, how earnestly I feel it, without knowing my secret heart, and the hopes and fears and anxieties with which it has long been laden. Dear Doctor Manette, I love your daughter fondly, dearly, disinterestedly, devotedly. If ever there were love in the world, I love her.
Charles Dickens
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Rich folks may ride on camels, but it ain't so easy for 'em to see out of a needle's eye.
Charles Dickens
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"Then idiots talk," said Eugene, leaning back, folding his arms, smoking with his eyes shut, and speaking slightly through his nose, "of Energy. If there is a word in the dictionary under any letter from A to Z that I abominate, it is energy."
Charles Dickens
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"Walter," she said, looking full upon him with her affectionate eyes, "like you, I hope for better things. I will pray for them, and believe that they will arrive."
Charles Dickens
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Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own.
Charles Dickens
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There's a young man hid with me, in comparison with which young man I am a Angel. That young man hears the words I speak. That young man has a secret way pecooliar to himself, of getting at a boy, and at his heart, and at his liver.
Charles Dickens
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The persons on whom I have bestowed my dearest love lie deep in their graves; but, although the happiness and delight of my life lie buried there too, I have not made a coffin of my heart, and sealed it up for ever on my best affections. Deep affliction has only made them stronger; it ought, I think, for it should refine our nature.
Charles Dickens
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Mrs. Lammle's manner changed under the poor silly girl's embraces, and she turned extremely pale: directing one appealing look, first to Mrs. Boffin, and then to Mr. Boffin. Both understood her instantly, with a more delicate subtlety than much better educated people, whose perception came less directly from the heart, could have brought to bear upon the case.
Charles Dickens
