Charles Dickens: Trending quotes (page 4)

“It was a maxim with Mr. Brass that the habit of paying compliments kept a man’s tongue oiled without any expense; and that, as that useful member ought never to grow rusty or creak in turning on its hinges in the case of a practitioner of the law, in whom it should be always glib and easy, he lost few opportunities of improving himself by the utterance of handsome speeches and eulogistic expressions.”

Charles Dickens book The Old Curiosity Shop

Source: The Old Curiosity Shop (1841), Ch. 35

Law

“"Did you ever taste beer?" "I had a sip of it once," said the small servant. "Here's a state of things!" cried Mr Swiveller, raising his eyes to the ceiling. "She never tasted it — it can't be tasted in a sip!"”

Charles Dickens book The Old Curiosity Shop

Source: The Old Curiosity Shop (1841), Ch. 57

Beer

“The civility which money will purchase, is rarely extended to those who have none.”

Charles Dickens book Sketches by Boz

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

Money

“The Circumlocution Office was (as everybody knows without being told) the most important Department under Government. No public business of any kind could possibly be done at any time without the acquiescence of the Circumlocution Office. Its finger was in the largest public pie, and in the smallest public tart. It was equally impossible to do the plainest right and to undo the plainest wrong without the express authority of the Circumlocution Office.”

Charles Dickens book Little Dorrit

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

Business , Time

“How much longer are we English to assist foreign nations in misunderstand us, by holding up that ridiculous lay-figure of our race known by the style and title of John Bull?”

Charles Dickens All the Year Round

"One Grand Tour Deserves Another" in All the Year Round: A Weekly Journal (27 December 1862) http://books.google.com/books?id=13VdAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA378

“That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different it's course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for the moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.”

Charles Dickens book Great Expectations

Source: Great Expectations (1860-1861), Ch. 9

Life , Imagination , Flowers , Thinking

“We must scrunch or be scrunched.”

Charles Dickens book Our Mutual Friend

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

“He’s tough, ma’am,—tough is J. B.; tough and devilish sly.”

Charles Dickens book Dombey and Son

Source: Dombey and Son (1846-1848), Ch. 7

“If there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.”

Charles Dickens book The Old Curiosity Shop

Source: The Old Curiosity Shop (1841), Ch. 56

People

“I want to be something so much worthier than the doll in the doll's house.”

Charles Dickens book Our Mutual Friend

Bk. I, Ch. 55
Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865)

Housing

“You will not have forgotten that it was a maxim with Foxey — our revered father, gentlemen — "Always suspect everybody." That's the maxim to go through life with!”

Charles Dickens book The Old Curiosity Shop

Source: The Old Curiosity Shop (1841), Ch. 66

Life

“I know nothing of philosophical philanthropy. But I know what I have seen, and what I have looked in the face in this world here, where I find myself. And I tell you this, my friend, that there are people (men and women both, unfortunately) who have no good in them—none. That there are people whom it is necessary to detest without compromise. That there are people who must be dealt with as enemies of the human race. That there are people who have no human heart, and who must be crushed like savage beasts and cleared out of the way.”

Charles Dickens book Little Dorrit

Bk. I, Ch. 11
Little Dorrit (1855-1857)

Women , Men , People , World

“A prison taint was on everything there. The imprisoned air, the imprisoned light, the imprisoned damps, the imprisoned men, were all deteriorated by confinement. As the captive men were faded and haggard, so the iron was rusty, the stone was slimy, the wood was rotten, the air was faint, the light was dim. Like a well, like a vault, like a tomb, the prison had no knowledge of the brightness outside; and would have kept its polluted atmosphere intact, in one of the spice islands of the Indian Ocean.”

Charles Dickens book Little Dorrit

Bk. I, Ch. 1
Little Dorrit (1855-1857)

Men , Knowledge , Light

“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 book Bleak House

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

“Don't you be afraid of hurting the boy,' he says.”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 22

Boy , Hurt

“Fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of friendship; and pass the rosy wine.”

Charles Dickens book The Old Curiosity Shop

Source: The Old Curiosity Shop (1841), Ch. 7

Friendship , Wine

“Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule.”

Charles Dickens book Great Expectations

Source: Great Expectations (1860-1861), Ch. 40

“The bright old day now dawns again; the cry runs through the land,
In England there shall be dear bread—in Ireland, sword and brand;
And poverty, and ignorance, shall swell the rich and grand,
So, rally round the rulers with the gentle iron hand,
Of the fine old English Tory days;
Hail to the coming time!”

Charles Dickens

The Fine Old English Gentleman (1841)

Time , Cry

“What is the odds so long as the fire of soul is kindled at the taper of conwiviality, and the wing of friendship never moults a feather! What is the odds so long as the spirit is expanded by means of rosy wine, and the present moment is the least happiest of our existence!”

Charles Dickens book The Old Curiosity Shop

Source: The Old Curiosity Shop (1841), Ch. 2

Friendship , Soul , Wine

“The very dogs were all asleep, and the flies, drunk with moist sugar in the grocer’s shop, forgot their wings and briskness, and baked to death in dusty corners of the window.”

Charles Dickens book The Old Curiosity Shop

Source: The Old Curiosity Shop (1841), Ch. 27

Death , Dogs