Charles Dickens: Trending quotes

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Charles Dickens: 232 quotes5 likes

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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)

“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

“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)

“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

“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)

“Throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people we most despise.”

Charles Dickens book Great Expectations

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

“If any one were to ask me what in my opinion was the dullest and most stupid spot on the face of the Earth, I should decidedly say Chelmsford.”

Charles Dickens

Letter to Thomas Beard (11 January 1835), in Madeline House, et al., The Letters of Charles Dickens (1965), p. 53

“In love of home, the love of country has its rise.”

Charles Dickens book The Old Curiosity Shop

Source: The Old Curiosity Shop (1841), Ch. 38

“I wish I were Commander in Chief of India. The first thing I would do to strike that Oriental race with amazement (not in the least regarding them as if they lived in the Strand, London, or at Camden Town), should be to proclaim to them in their language, that I considered my Holding that appointment by the leave of God, to mean that I should do my utmost to exterminate the Race upon whom the stain of the late cruelties rested; and that I begged them to do me the favor to observe that I was there for that purpose and no other, and was now proceeding, which all convenient dispatch and merciful swiftness of execution, to blot it out of mankind and raze it off the face of the earth.”

Charles Dickens

in a private letter to Baronness Burdett-Coutts on 4 October 1857

“Resisting the slow touch of a frozen finger tracing out my spine.”

Charles Dickens

The Signal-Man http://www.charles-dickens.org/three-ghost-stories-the-signal-man/ebook-page-04.asp (1866)

“No one is useless in this world,' retorted the Secretary, 'who lightens the burden of it for any one else.”

Charles Dickens book Our Mutual Friend

Bk. III, Ch. 9
Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865)

“"Papa is a preferable mode of address," observed Mrs General. "Father is rather vulgar, my dear. The word Papa, besides, gives a pretty form to the lips. Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes, and prism are all very good words for the lips: especially prunes and prism. You will find it serviceable, in the formation of a demeanour, if you sometimes say to yourself in company — on entering a room, for instance — Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism, prunes and prism.”

Charles Dickens book Little Dorrit

Bk. II, Ch. 5
Little Dorrit (1855-1857)