Charles Dickens Quotes
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"You are a boy," said Mr. Dombey, suddenly and almost fiercely; "and what you think of, or affect to think of, is of little consequence. You have done well, Sir. Don't undo it."
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Possibly we might even improve the world a little, if we got up early in the morning, and took off our coats to the work.
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Everything that Mr Smallweed's grandfather ever put away in his mind was a grub at first, and is a grub at last. In all his life he has never bred a single butterfly.
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I have been, as the phrase is, liberally educated, and am fit for nothing.
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I don't feel any vulgar gratitude to you[for helping me]. I almost feel as if You ought to be grateful to ME, for giving you the opportunity of enjoying the luxury of generosity. . . I may have come into the world expressly for the purpose of increasing your stock of happiness. I may have been born to be a benefactor to you, by giving you an opportunity of assisting me.
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Your voice and music are the same to me.
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Try to do unto others as you would have them do to you, and do not be discouraged if they fail sometimes. It is much better that they should fail than you should.
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It being a remarkable fact in theatrical history, but one long since established beyond dispute, that it is a hopeless endeavor to attract people to a theatre unless they can be first brought to believe that they will never get in.
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Don't be afraid! We won't make an author of you, while there's an honest trade to be learnt, or brick-making to turn to.
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Its matter was not new to me, but was presented in a new aspect. It shook me in my habit - the habit of nine-tenths of the world - of believing that all was right about me, because I was used to it.
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I think it impossible, utterly impossible, for any Englishman to live here [in America], and be happy.
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"Some persons hold," he pursued, still hesitating, "that there is a wisdom of the Head, and that there is a wisdom of the Heart..."
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Mr. Bazzard's father, being a Norfolk farmer, would have furiously laid about him with a flail, a pitch-fork, and every agricultural implement available for assaulting purposes, on the slightest hint of his son's having written a play.
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She better liked to see him free and happy, even than to have him near her, because she loved him better than herself.
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The expression of a man's face is commonly a help to his thoughts, or glossary on his speech; but the countenance of Newman Noggs, in his ordinary moods, was a problem which no stretch of ingenuity could solve.
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Nothing of what is nobly done is ever lost.
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A contented spirit is the sweetness of existence.
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An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself.
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"A child!" said Edith, looking at her. "When was I a child? What childhood did you ever leave to me? I was a woman - artful, designing, mercenary, laying snares for men - before I knew myself, or you, or even understood the base and wretched aim of every new display I learnt. You gave birth to a woman. Look upon her. She is in her pride tonight."
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It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.
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What are the odds so long as the fire of the soul is kindled at the taper of conviviality, and the wing of friendship never molts a feather?
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Are you thankful for not being young?' 'Yes, sir. If I was young, it would all have to be gone through again, and the end would be a weary way off, don't you see?
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Them which is of other naturs thinks different.
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My meaning is, that no man can expect his children to respect what he degrades.