Charles Dickens Quotes
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Of all bad listeners, the worst and most terrible to encounter is the man who is so fond of listening that he wishes to hear, not only your conversation, but that of every other person in the room.
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Loves and Cupids took to flight afraid, and Martyrdom had no such torment in its painted history of suffering.
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Thus violent deeds live after men upon the earth, and traces of war and bloodshed will survive in mournful shapes long after those who worked the desolation are but atoms of earth themselves.
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The Christmas season reminds us that a demonstration of religion is always much better than a definition of it...especially in front of the kids. Perhaps the best Yuletide decorations are to be wreathed in smiles and wrapped in hugs. The miracle of Christmas is that a baby can be so decisive. It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty founder was a child himself.
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The more man knows of man, the better for the common brotherhood among men.
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Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques.
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Now, I return to this young fellow. And the communication I have got to make is, that he has great expectations.
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When I have come to you, at last (as I have always done), I have come to peace and happiness. I come home, now, like a tired traveller, and find such a blessed sense of rest!
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All knives and forks were working away at a rate that was quite alarming; very few words were spoken; and everybody seemed to eat his utmost, in self defence, as if a famine were expected to set in before breakfast-time tomorrow morning, and it had become high time to assert the first law of nature.
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Indeed, it may be laid down as a general principle, that the more extended the ancestry, the greater the amount of violence and vagabondism; for in ancient days those two amusements, combining a wholesome excitement with a promising means of repairing shattered fortunes, were at once the ennobling pursuit and the healthful recreation of the Quality of this land.
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The men who learn endurance, are they who call the whole world, brother.
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For a long time, no village girl would dress her hair or bosom with the sweetest flower from that field of death: and after many a year had come and gone, the berries growing there, were still believed to leave too deep a stain upon the hand that plucked them.
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Constancy in love is a good thing; but it means nothing, and is nothing, without constancy in every kind of effort.
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Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it.
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Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true.
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And 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.
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Gold, for the instant, lost its luster in his eyes, for there were countless treasures of the heart which it could never purchase.
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But the moon came slowly up in all her gentle glory, and the stars looked out, and through the small compass of the grated window, as through the narrow crevice of one good deed in a murky life of guilt, the face of Heaven shone bright and merciful. He raised his head; gazed upward at the quiet sky, which seemed to smile upon the earth in sadness, as if the night, more thoughtful than the day, looked down in sorrow on the sufferings and evil deeds of men; and felt its peace sink deep into his heart.
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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.
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Some of the craftiest scoundrels that ever walked this earth . . . will gravely jot down in diaries the events of every day, and keep a regular debtor and creditor account with heaven, which shall always show a floating balance in their own favour.
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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.
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Ah, Miss Harriet, it would do us no harm to remember oftener than we do, that vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!
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A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world!
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Quadruped lions are said to be savage, only when they are hungry; biped lions are rarely sulky longer than when their appetite for distinction remains unappeased.