Charles Dickens Quotes
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"Hope to the last!" said Newman, clapping him on the back. "Always hope; that's dear boy. Never leave off hoping; it don't answer. Do you mind me, Nick? it don't answer. Don't leave a stone unturned. It's always something, to know you've done the most you could. But, don't leave off hoping, or it's of no use doing anything. Hope, hope, to the last!"
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One great blemish in the popular mind of America and the prolific parent of an innumerable brood of evils, is Universal Distrust . . . you no sooner set up an idol firmly, than you are sure to pull it down and dash it into fragments: and this because directly you reward a benefactor, or a public servant, you distrust him, merely because he is rewarded . . . . Any man who attains a high place among you, from the President downwards, may date his downfall from that moment.
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Up the two terrace flights of steps the rain ran wildly, and beat at the great door, like a swift messenger rousing those within;.
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Women can always put things in fewest words. Except when it's blowing up; and then they lengthens it out.
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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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I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free.
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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.
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I distress you; I draw fast to an end.
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There once was a child, and he strolled about a good deal, and thought of a number of things. He had a sister, who was a child too, and his constant companion. These two used to wonder all day long. They wondered at the beauty of the flowers; they wondered at the height and blueness of the sky; they wondered at the depth of the bright water; they wondered at the goodness and the power of God who made the lovely world.
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And what about the cash, my existence's jewel?
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Are there no prisons?
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One always begins to forgive a place as soon as it's left behind.
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Poor Mr. Pickwick! ... If he played a wrong card, Miss Bolo looked a small armoury of daggers; if he stopped to consider which was the right one, Lady Snuphanuph would throw herself back in her chair, and smile with a mingled glance of impatience and pity to Mrs. Colonel Wugsby, at which Mrs. Colonel Wugsby would shrug up her shoulders, and cough, as much as to say she wondered whether he ever would begin.
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And it was not until I began to think, that I began fully to know how wrecked I was, and how the ship in which I had sailed was gone to pieces.
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Other sound than the owl's voice there was none, save the falling of a fountain into its stone basin; for, it was one of those dark nights that hold their breath by the hour together, and then heave a long low sigh, and hold their breath again.
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Do not close your heart against all my efforts to help you.
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I don't remember who was there, except Dora. I have not the least idea what we had for dinner, besides Dora. My impression is, that I dined off Dora, entirely, and sent away half-a-dozen plates untouched. I sat next to her. I talked to her. She had the most delightful little voice, the gayest little laugh, the pleasantest and most fascinating little ways, that ever led a lost youth into hopeless slavery. She was rather diminutive altogether. So much the more precious, I thought.
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It being a part of Mrs. Pipchin's system not to encourage a child's mind to develop and expand itself like a young flower, but to open it by force like an oyster.
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Come, let's be a comfortable couple and take care of each other! How glad we shall be, that we have somebody we are fond of always, to talk to and sit with.
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I was so humiliated, hurt, spurned, offended, angry, sorry--I cannot hit upon the right name for the smart--God knows what its name was--that tears started to my eyes.
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We must leave the discovery of this mystery, like all others, to time, and accident, and Heaven's pleasure.
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And numerous indeed are the hearts to which Christmas brings a brief season of happiness and enjoyment.
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There is something indefinably keen and wan about her anatomy, and she has a watchful way of looking out of the corners of her eyes without turning her head which could be pleasantly dispensed with, especially when she is in an ill humour and near knives. Through all the good taste of her dress and little adornments, these objections so express themselves that she seems to go about like a very neat she-wolf imperfectly tamed.
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A heart well worth winning, and well won. A heart that, once won, goes through fire and water for the winner, and never changes, and is never daunted.