Charles Dickens > Quotes

“If Husain (as) had fought to quench his worldly desires…then I do not understand why his sister, wife, and children accompanied him. It stands to reason therefore, that he sacrificed purely for Islam.”
― Charles Dickens

“Perhaps second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, come easily off and on.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“There is a kind of sleep that steals upon us sometimes, which, while it holds the body prisoner, does not free the mind from a sense of things about it, and enable it to ramble at its pleasure. So far as an overpowering heaviness, a prostration of strength, and an utter inability to control our thoughts or power of motion, can be called sleep, this is it; and yet we have a consciousness of all that is going on about us; and if we dream at such a time, words which are really spoken, or sounds which really exist at the moment, accommodate themselves with surprising readiness to our visions, until reality and imagination become so strangely blended that it is afterwards almost a matter of impossibilty to separate the two. Nor is this, the most striking phenomenon, incidental to such a state. It is an undoubted fact, that although our senses of touch and sight be for the time dead, yet our sleeping thoughts, and the visionary scenes that pass before us, will be influenced, and materially influenced, by the mere silent presence of some external object: which may not have been near us when we closed our eyes: and of whose vicinity we have had no waking consciousness. ”
― Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

“Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, Right Reverends and Wrong Reverends of every order. Dead, men and women, born with Heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around us every day.”
― Charles Dickens, Bleak House

“We must meet reverses boldly, and not suffer them to frighten us, my dear. We must learn to act the play out. We must live misfortune down, Trot!”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“هناك كتب .. غلافـها أفضل ما فيها”
― Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

“I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free. Mankind will surely not deny to Harold Skimpole what it concedes to the butterflies.”
― Charles Dickens, Bleak House

“Era el mejor de los tiempos y era el peor de los tiempos; la edad de la sabiduría y también de la locura; la época de las creencias y de la incredulidad; la era de la luz y de las tinieblas; la primavera de la esperanza y el invierno de la desesperación. Todo lo poseíamos, pero nada teníamos; íbamos directamente al cielo y nos extraviábamos en el camino opuesto. En una palabra, aquella época era tan parecida a la actual, que nuestras más notables autoridades insisten en que, tanto en lo que se refiere al bien como al mal, sólo es aceptable la comparación en grado superlativo.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“Do you want to be a gentleman, to spite her or to gain her over? Because, if it is to spite her, I should think - but you know best - that might be better and more independently done by caring nothing for her words. And if it is to gain her over, I should think - but you know best - she was not worth gaining over.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“You are hard at work madam ," said the man near her.
Yes," Answered Madam Defarge ; " I have a good deal to do."
What do you make, Madam ?"
Many things."
For instance ---"
For instance," returned Madam Defarge , composedly ,
Shrouds."
The man moved a little further away, as soon as he could, feeling it mightily close and oppressive .”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“There can't be a quarrel without two parties, and I won't be one. I will be a friend to you in spite of you. So now you know what you've got to expect”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“Of little worth as life is when we misuse it, it is worth that effort. It would cost nothing to lay down if it were not.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“That glorious vision of doing good is so often the sanguine mirage of so many good minds.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“The universe makes rather an indifferent parent, I'm afraid.”
― Charles Dickens, Bleak House

“Scattered wits take a long time in picking up.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“He thought of the number of girls and women she had seen marry, how many homes with children in them she had seen grow up around her, how she had contentedly pursued her own lone quite path-for him.

~ Stephen speaking of Rachael”
― Charles Dickens, Hard Times

“Let the tears which fell, and the broken words which were exchanged in the long close embrace between the orphans, be sacred. A father, sister, and mother, were gained, and lost, in that one moment. Joy and grief were mingled in the cup; but there were no bitter tears: for even grief arose so softened, and clothed in such sweet and tender recollections, that it became a solemn pleasure, and lost all character of pain.”
― Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

“Darkness was cheap, and Scrooge liked it.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“So does a whole world, with all its greatnesses and littlenesses, lie in a twinkling star. And as mere human knowledge can split a ray of light and analyse the manner of its composition, so, sublimer intelligences may read in the feeble shining of this earth of ours, every thought and act, every vice and virtue, of every responsible creature on it.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“I begin to think,' said Estella, in a musing way, after another moment of calm wonder, 'that I almost understand how this comes about. If you had brought up your adopted daughter wholly in the dark confinement of these rooms, and had never let her know that there was such a thing as the daylight by which she has never once seen your face―if you had done that, and then, for a purpose, had wanted her to understand the daylight and know all about it, you would have been disappointed and angry? . . .'
Or,' said Estella, '―which is a nearer case―if you had taught her, from the dawn of her intelligence, with your utmost energy and might, that there was such a thing as daylight, but that it was made to be her enemy and destroyer, and she must always turn against it, for it had blighted you and would else blight her―if you had done this, and then, for a purpose, had wanted her to take naturally to the daylight and she could not do it, you would have been disappointed and angry? . . .'
So,' said Estella, 'I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“For the rest of his life, Oliver Twist remembers a single word of blessing spoken to him by another child because this word stood out so strikingly from the consistent discouragement around him.”
― Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

“We were equals afterwards, as we had been before; but, afterwards at quiet times when I sat looking at Joe and thinking about him, I had a new sensation of feeling conscious that I was looking up to Joe in my heart.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“if the world go wrong, it was, in some off-hand manner, never meant to go right.”
― Charles Dickens, Bleak House

“But, in this separation I associate you only with the good and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you have done far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“One always begins to forgive a place as soon as it’s left behind.”
― Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit

“When they took a young man into Tellson's London house, they hid him somewhere till he was old. They kept him in a dark place, like a cheese, until he had the full Tellson flavour and blue-mould upon him. Then only was he permitted to be seen, spectacularly poring over large books, and casting his breeches and gaiters into the general weight of the establishment.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“But, tears were not the things to find their way to Mr. Bumble's soul; his heart was waterproof.”
― Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

“It is said that every life has its roses and thorns; there seemed, however, to have been a misadventure or mistake in Stephen’s case, whereby somebody else had become possessed of his roses, and he had become possessed of somebody else’s thorns in addition to his own.”
― Charles Dickens, Hard Times

“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, Oliver Twist