Charles Dickens Quotes (116 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

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Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens: 116 quotes 5 likes

Famous Charles Dickens Quotes

“There is a wisdom of the Head, and … there is a wisdom of the Heart.”

Charles Dickens book Hard Times

Bk. III, Ch. 1
Hard Times (1854)

“Don't leave a stone unturned. It's always something, to know you have done the most you could.”

Charles Dickens

“Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!”

Charles Dickens book Hard Times

Bk. I, Ch. 1
Hard Times (1854)

“Never have a Mission, my dear child.”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 30

“All the truth of my position came flashing on me; and its disappointments, dangers, disgraces, consequences of all kinds, rushed in in such a multitude that I was borne down by them and had to struggle for every breath I drew.”

Charles Dickens book Great Expectations

Source: Great Expectations (1860-1861), Ch. 39

“It is strange with how little notice, good, bad, or indifferent, a man may live and die in London.”

Charles Dickens book Sketches by Boz

Characters, Ch. 1 : Thoughts About People
Sketches by Boz (1836-1837)
Context: It is strange with how little notice, good, bad, or indifferent, a man may live and die in London. He awakens no sympathy in the breast of any single person; his existence is a matter of interest to no one save himself; he cannot be said to be forgotten when he dies, for no one remembered him when he was alive. There is a numerous class of people in this great metropolis who seem not to possess a single friend, and whom nobody appears to care for. Urged by imperative necessity in the first instance, they have resorted to London in search of employment, and the means of subsistence. It is hard, we know, to break the ties which bind us to our homes and friends, and harder still to efface the thousand recollections of happy days and old times, which have been slumbering in our bosoms for years, and only rush upon the mind, to bring before it associations connected with the friends we have left, the scenes we have beheld too probably for the last time, and the hopes we once cherished, but may entertain no more. These men, however, happily for themselves, have long forgotten such thoughts. Old country friends have died or emigrated; former correspondents have become lost, like themselves, in the crowd and turmoil of some busy city; and they have gradually settled down into mere passive creatures of habit and endurance.

Charles Dickens Quotes about men

“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 book Bleak House

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 47

“He is not, as he forcibly remarks, ‘one of those fortunate men who, if they were to dive under one side of a barge stark–naked, would come up on the other with a new suit of clothes on, and a ticket for soup in the waistcoat–pocket:’ neither is he one of those, whose spirit has been broken beyond redemption by misfortune and want. He is just one of the careless, good–for–nothing, happy fellows, who float, cork–like, on the surface, for the world to play at hockey with: knocked here, and there, and everywhere: now to the right, then to the left, again up in the air, and anon to the bottom, but always reappearing and bounding with the stream buoyantly and merrily along.”

Charles Dickens book Sketches by Boz

Our Parish, Ch. 5 : The Broker’s Man
Sketches by Boz (1836-1837)

“Oh my friends, the down-trodden operatives of Coketown! Oh my friends and fellow-countrymen, the slaves of an ironhanded and a grinding despotism! Oh my friends and fellow-sufferers, and fellow-workmen, and fellow-men! I tell you that the hour is come, when we must rally round one another as One united power, and crumble into dust the oppressors that too long have battened upon the plunder of our families, upon the sweat of our brows, upon the labour of our hands, upon the strength of our sinews, upon the God-created glorious rights of Humanity, and upon the holy and eternal privileges of Brotherhood!”

Charles Dickens book Hard Times

Bk. II, Ch. 4
Hard Times (1854)

“Reflect upon your present blessings — of which every man has many — not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”

Charles Dickens book Sketches by Boz

Characters, Ch. 2 : A Christmas Dinner
Sketches by Boz (1836-1837)
Context: Christmas time! That man must be a misanthrope indeed, in whose breast something like a jovial feeling is not roused — in whose mind some pleasant associations are not awakened — by the recurrence of Christmas. There are people who will tell you that Christmas is not to them what it used to be; that each succeeding Christmas has found some cherished hope, or happy prospect, of the year before, dimmed or passed away; that the present only serves to remind them of reduced circumstances and straitened incomes — of the feasts they once bestowed on hollow friends, and of the cold looks that meet them now, in adversity and misfortune. Never heed such dismal reminiscences. There are few men who have lived long enough in the world, who cannot call up such thoughts any day in the year. Then do not select the merriest of the three hundred and sixty-five for your doleful recollections, but draw your chair nearer the blazing fire — fill the glass and send round the song — and if your room be smaller than it was a dozen years ago, or if your glass be filled with reeking punch, instead of sparkling wine, put a good face on the matter, and empty it off-hand, and fill another, and troll off the old ditty you used to sing, and thank God it’s no worse. Look on the merry faces of your children (if you have any) as they sit round the fire. One little seat may be empty; one slight form that gladdened the father’s heart, and roused the mother’s pride to look upon, may not be there. Dwell not upon the past; think not that one short year ago, the fair child now resolving into dust, sat before you, with the bloom of health upon its cheek, and the gaiety of infancy in its joyous eye. Reflect upon your present blessings — of which every man has many — not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. Fill your glass again, with a merry face and contented heart. Our life on it, but your Christmas shall be merry, and your new year a happy one!

“It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations.”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 28

“The system here, is rigid, strict, and hopeless solitary confinement… I believe that very few men are capable of estimating the immense amount of torture and agony which this dreadful punishment, prolonged for years, inflicts upon the sufferers… I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain, to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body: and because its ghastly signs and tokens are not so palpable to the eye and sense of touch as scars upon the flesh; because its wounds are not upon the surface, and it extorts few cries that human ears can hear; therefore I the more denounce it, as a secret punishment which slumbering humanity is not roused up to stay”

Charles Dickens

American Notes online at Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/675/pg675.html

Charles Dickens: Trending quotes

“A person who can't pay, gets another person who can't pay, to guarantee that he can pay. Like a person with two wooden legs getting another person with two wooden legs, to guarantee that he has got two natural legs. It don't make either of them able to do a walking match.”

Charles Dickens book Little Dorrit

Bk. I, Ch. 23
Little Dorrit (1855-1857)

Nature , Personality

“Christmas time! That man must be a misanthrope indeed, in whose breast something like a jovial feeling is not roused — in whose mind some pleasant associations are not awakened — by the recurrence of Christmas.”

Charles Dickens book Sketches by Boz

Feeling , Time , Christmas

“You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since, — on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made are not more real, or more impossible to be displaced by your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation, I associate you only with the good; and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you!”

Charles Dickens book Great Expectations

Source: Great Expectations (1860-1861), Ch. 44

Life , God , Feeling , Boy

Charles Dickens Quotes

“Mr. Augustus Minns was a bachelor, of about forty as he said — of about eight-and-forty as his friends said.”

Charles Dickens

First lines of Dicken's first published work, originally titled "A Dinner at Poplar Walk" (1833), later published as "Mr. Minns and his Cousin"
Context: Mr. Augustus Minns was a bachelor, of about forty as he said — of about eight-and-forty as his friends said. He was always exceedingly clean, precise, and tidy: perhaps somewhat priggish, and the most retiring man in the world.

“Love is not a feeling to pass away,
Like the balmy breath of a summer day;
It is not — it cannot be — laid aside;
It is not a thing to forget or hide.”

Charles Dickens

Lucy's Song in The Village Coquettes (1836); later published in The Poems and Verses of Charles Dickens (1903)
Context: p>Love is not a feeling to pass away,
Like the balmy breath of a summer day;
It is not — it cannot be — laid aside;
It is not a thing to forget or hide.
It clings to the heart, ah, woe is me!
As the ivy clings to the old oak tree.Love is not a passion of earthly mould,
As a thirst for honour, or fame, or gold:
For when all these wishes have died away,
The deep strong love of a brighter day,
Though nourished in secret, consumes the more,
As the slow rust eats to the iron’s core.</p

Love , Feeling , Summer , Forgetting

“He was not unamiable, but he could at any time have viewed the execution of a dog, or the assassination of an infant, with the liveliest satisfaction. Their habits were at variance with his love of order; and his love of order, was as powerful as his love of life.”

Charles Dickens

"A Dinner at Poplar Walk" (1833), later published as "Mr. Minns and his Cousin"
Context: There were two classes of created objects which he held in the deepest and most unmingled horror: they were, dogs and children. He was not unamiable, but he could at any time have viewed the execution of a dog, or the assassination of an infant, with the liveliest satisfaction. Their habits were at variance with his love of order; and his love of order, was as powerful as his love of life.

Love , Life , Dogs , Time

“I put a New Testament among your books, for the very same reasons, and with the very same hopes that made me write an easy account of it for you, when you were a little child; because it is the best book that ever was or will be known in the world,”

Charles Dickens

Letter to Edward Dickens (26 September 1868), published in The Selected Letters of Charles Dickens http://books.google.com.br/books?id=NJH1g1i4gnIC&printsec=frontcover&hl=pt-BR#v=onepage&q&f=false, Edited by Jenny Hartley
Context: I put a New Testament among your books, for the very same reasons, and with the very same hopes that made me write an easy account of it for you, when you were a little child; because it is the best book that ever was or will be known in the world, and because it teaches you the best lessons by which any human creature who tries to be truthful and faithful to duty can possibly be guided. As your brothers have gone away, one by one, I have written to each such words as I am now writing to you, and have entreated them all to guide themselves by this book, putting aside the interpretations and inventions of men.

Books , World , Hope

“Grief never mended no broken bones, and as good people’s wery scarce, what I says is, make the most on ’em.”

Charles Dickens book Sketches by Boz

Scenes, Ch. 22 : Gin-Shops
Sketches by Boz (1836-1837)

People

“He wos wery good to me, he wos!”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 11

“Take care, while you are young, that you can think in those days, 'I never whitened a hair of her dear head, I never marked a sorrowful line in her face!' For of all the many things that you can think when you are a man, you had better have that by you, Woolwich!”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 34

Thinking

“This is the Court of Chancery, which has its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire, which has its worn-out lunatic in every madhouse and its dead in every churchyard, which has its ruined suitor with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress borrowing and begging through the round of every man's acquaintance, which gives to monied might the means abundantly of wearying out the right, which so exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope, so overthrows the brain and breaks the heart, that there is not an honourable man among its practitioners who would not give--who does not often give--the warning, "Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come here!"”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 1

Hope , Courage , Suffering , Heart

“I expect a judgment. Shortly.”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 3

“The Barnacles were a very high family, and a very large family. They were dispersed all over the public offices, and held all sorts of public places. Either the nation was under a load of obligation to the Barnacles, or the Barnacles were under a load of obligation to the nation. It was not quite unanimously settled which; the Barnacles having their opinion, the nation theirs.”

Charles Dickens book Little Dorrit

Bk. I, Ch. 10
Little Dorrit (1855-1857)

Family

“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. No man can form an adequate idea of the real meaning of the word, without coming here.”

Charles Dickens

Comment while on an American tour (March 1842), as quoted in Dickens (1949) by Hesketh Pearson, Ch. 8

Idea

“I don’t feel any vulgar gratitude to you. I almost feel as if you ought to be grateful to me, for giving you the opportunity of enjoying the luxury of generosity. I know you like it. For anything I can tell, I may have come into the world expressly for the purpose of increasing your stock of happiness.”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 6

World , Feeling , Gratitude , Happiness

“"Wal'r, my boy," replied the Captain, "in the Proverbs of Solomon you will find the following words, 'May we never want a friend in need, nor a bottle to give him!'”

Charles Dickens book Dombey and Son

When found, make a note of."
Source: Dombey and Son (1846-1848), Ch. 15

Boy

“The difficulty of writing English is most tiresome to me. My God! If only we could write this beautiful language of France at all times!”

Charles Dickens

La difficulté d'écrire l'anglais m'est extrêmement ennuyeuse. Ah, mon Dieu! si l'on pouvait toujours écrire cette belle langue de France!
Letter to John Foster (7 July 1850)

God , Beauty , Time

“I revere the memory of Mr. F. as an estimable man and most indulgent husband, only necessary to mention Asparagus and it appeared or to hint at any little delicate thing to drink and it came like magic in a pint bottle; it was not ecstasy but it was comfort.”

Charles Dickens book Little Dorrit

Bk. I, Ch. 24
Little Dorrit (1855-1857)

Drink , Appearance , Memory

“Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. This scarecrow of a suit, has, in course of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what it means. The parties to it understand it least; but it has been observed that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five minutes, without coming to total disagreement as to all the premises.”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 1

Understanding , Time

“The dignity of his office is never impaired by the absence of efforts on his part to maintain it.”

Charles Dickens book Sketches by Boz

Our Parish, Ch. 1 : The Beadle. The Parish Engine. The Schoolmaster.
Sketches by Boz (1836-1837)

Effort , Parting

“Now, I ain't alone, as you may think I am. 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. It is in wain for a boy to attempt to hide himself from that young man. A boy may lock his door, may be warm in bed, may tuck himself up, may draw the clothes over his head, may think himself comfortable and safe, but that young man will softly creep and creep his way to him and tear him open.”

Charles Dickens book Great Expectations

Source: Great Expectations (1860-1861), Ch. 1

Secret , Angels , Way , Boy

“And if it's proud to have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts," Miss Jenny struck in, flushed, "she is proud.”

Charles Dickens book Our Mutual Friend

Bk. III, Ch. 2
Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865)

Heart , Hurt

“Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving — HOW NOT TO DO IT.”

Charles Dickens book Little Dorrit

Bk. I, Ch. 10
Little Dorrit (1855-1857)
Variant: Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving — HOW NOT TO DO IT.

Art

“Once a gentleman, and always a gentleman.”

Charles Dickens book Little Dorrit

Bk. II, Ch. 28
Little Dorrit (1855-1857)

“Mrs. Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her cleanliness more uncomfortable and unacceptable than the dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and some people do the same by religion.”

Charles Dickens book Great Expectations

Source: Great Expectations (1860-1861), Ch. 4

People , Religion , Art

“…vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!”

Charles Dickens book Dombey and Son

Source: Dombey and Son (1846-1848), Ch. 48

“Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded together…”

Charles Dickens book Great Expectations

Source: Great Expectations (1860-1861), Ch. 27

Life , Parting

“It is said that the children of the very poor are not brought up, but dragged up.”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 6

Children

“Compeyson's business was the swindling, hand writing forging, stolen bank-note passing, and such-like. All sorts of traps as Compeyson could set with his head, and keep his own legs out of and get the profits from and let another man in for, was Compeyson's business. He'd no more heart than a iron file he was as cold as death, and he had the head of the Devil afore mentioned.”

Charles Dickens book Great Expectations

Source: Great Expectations (1860-1861), Ch. 42

Death , Business , Heart

“He is a gentleman of strict conscience, disdainful of all littleness and meanness and ready on the shortest notice to die any death you may please to mention rather than give occasion for the least impeachment of his integrity. He is an honourable, obstinate, truthful, high-spirited, intensely prejudiced, perfectly unreasonable man.”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 2

Death , Truth

“Money and goods are certainly the best of references.”

Charles Dickens book Our Mutual Friend

Bk. I, Ch. 4
Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865)

Money

“Wherever religion is resorted to as a strong drink, and as an escape from the dull, monotonous round of home, those of its ministers who pepper the highest will be the surest to please. They who strew the Eternal Path with the greatest amount of brimstone, and who most ruthlessly tread down the flowers and leaves that grow by the wayside, will be voted the most righteous; and they who enlarge with the greatest pertinacity on the difficulty of getting into heaven will be considered, by all true believers, certain of going there: though it would be hard to say by what process of reasoning this conclusion is arrived at.”

Charles Dickens book American Notes

American Notes (1842), Ch. 3

Religion , Home , Flowers , Drink

“Oh, dear no, miss," he said. "This is a London particular." I had never heard of such a thing. "A fog, miss," said the young gentleman. "Oh, indeed!”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

said I.
Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 3

“We are not rich in the bank, but we have always prospered and we have quite enough. I never walk out with my husband but I hear the people bless him. I never lie down at night, but I know that in the course of that day he has alleviated pain and soothed some fellow creature in the time of need. Is not this to be rich?”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 67

Pain , People , Lie , Time

“Time was," he said, "when it was well to watch even your rising little star, and know in what quarter there were clouds, to shadow you if needful. But a planet has arisen, and you are lost in its light.”

Charles Dickens book Dombey and Son

Source: Dombey and Son (1846-1848), Ch. 46

Star , Light , Time

“It’s my old girl that advises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained.”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 27

Girl

“I don't care whether I am a Minx or a Sphinx.”

Charles Dickens book Our Mutual Friend

Bk. II, Ch. 8
Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865)

“The bearings of this observation lays in the application on it.”

Charles Dickens book Dombey and Son

Source: Dombey and Son (1846-1848), Ch. 23

“My guiding star always is, Get hold of portable property.”

Charles Dickens book Great Expectations

Source: Great Expectations (1860-1861), Ch. 24

Star

“I used to sit, think, think, thinking, till I felt as lonesome as a kitten in a wash–house copper with the lid on.”

Charles Dickens book Sketches by Boz

Our Parish, Ch. 5 : The Broker’s Man
Sketches by Boz (1836-1837)

Thinking , Housing

“If the people at large be not already convinced that a sufficient general case has been made out for Administrative Reform, I think they never can be, and they never will be…. Ages ago a savage mode of keeping accounts on notched sticks was introduced into the Court of Exchequer, and the accounts were kept, much as Robinson Crusoe kept his calendar on the desert island. In the course of considerable revolutions of time, the celebrated Cocker was born, and died; Walkinghame, of the Tutor's Assistant, and well versed in figures, was also born, and died; a multitude of accountants, book-keepers and actuaries, were born, and died. Still official routine inclined to these notched sticks, as if they were pillars of the constitution, and still the Exchequer accounts continued to be kept on certain splints of elm wood called "tallies." In the reign of George III an inquiry was made by some revolutionary spirit, whether pens, ink, and paper, slates and pencils, being in existence, this obstinate adherence to an obsolete custom ought to be continued, and whether a change ought not to be effected.
All the red tape in the country grew redder at the bare mention of this bold and original conception, and it took till 1826 to get these sticks abolished. In 1834 it was found that there was a considerable accumulation of them; and the question then arose, what was to be done with such worn-out, worm-eaten, rotten old bits of wood? I dare say there was a vast amount of minuting, memoranduming, and despatch-boxing on this mighty subject. The sticks were housed at Westminster, and it would naturally occur to any intelligent person that nothing could be easier than to allow them to be carried away for fire-wood by the miserable people who live in that neighbourhood. However, they never had been useful, and official routine required that they never should be, and so the order went forth that they were to be privately and confidentially burnt. It came to pass that they were burnt in a stove in the House of Lords. The stove, overgorged with these preposterous sticks, set fire to the panelling; the panelling set fire to the House of Lords; the House of Lords set fire to the House of Commons; the two houses were reduced to ashes; architects were called in to build others; we are now in the second million of the cost thereof, the national pig is not nearly over the stile yet; and the little old woman, Britannia, hasn't got home to-night…. The great, broad, and true cause that our public progress is far behind our private progress, and that we are not more remarkable for our private wisdom and success in matters of business than we are for our public folly and failure, I take to be as clearly established as the sun, moon, and stars.”

Charles Dickens

"Administrative Reform" (June 27, 1855) Theatre Royal, Drury Lane Speeches Literary and Social by Charles Dickens https://books.google.com/books?id=bT5WAAAAcAAJ (1870) pp. 133-134

Wisdom , People , Books , Age

“I am the only child of parents who weighed, measured, and priced everything; for whom what could not be weighed, measured, and priced, had no existence.”

Charles Dickens book Little Dorrit

Bk. I, Ch. 2
Little Dorrit (1855-1857)

Parent

“I want to know what it says," he answered, looking steadily in her face. "The sea Floy, what is it that it keeps on saying?”

Charles Dickens book Dombey and Son

Source: Dombey and Son (1846-1848), Ch. 8

Sea

“That's the state to live and die in!…R-r-rich!”

Charles Dickens book Our Mutual Friend

Bk. III, Ch. 5
Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865)