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Charles Dickens Quotes
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Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are still widely read today.Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. Despite his lack of formal education, he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed readings extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms.

Dickens's literary success began with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers. Within a few years he had become an international literary celebrity, famous for his humour, satire, and keen observation of character and society. His novels, most published in monthly or weekly instalments, pioneered the serial publication of narrative fiction, which became the dominant Victorian mode for novel publication. Cliffhanger endings in his serial publications kept readers in suspense. The installment format allowed Dickens to evaluate his audience's reaction, and he often modified his plot and character development based on such feedback. For example, when his wife's chiropodist expressed distress at the way Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield seemed to reflect her disabilities, Dickens improved the character with positive features. His plots were carefully constructed, and he often wove elements from topical events into his narratives. Masses of the illiterate poor chipped in ha'pennies to have each new monthly episode read to them, opening up and inspiring a new class of readers.His 1843 novella A Christmas Carol remains especially popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also frequently adapted and, like many of his novels, evoke images of early Victorian London. His 1859 novel A Tale of Two Cities is his best-known work of historical fiction. The most famous celebrity of his era, he undertook in response to public demand, a series of public reading tours in the later part of his career. Dickens has been praised by many of his fellow writers—from Leo Tolstoy to George Orwell, G. K. Chesterton, and Tom Wolfe—for his realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterisations, and social criticism. However, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf complained of a lack of psychological depth, loose writing, and a vein of sentimentalism.

The term Dickensian is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings, such as poor social conditions or comically repulsive characters. Wikipedia  

✵ 7. February 1812 – 9. June 1870
Charles Dickens photo
Charles Dickens: 116   quotes 5   likes

Charles Dickens Quotes

“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

“Who will wonder that Barbara had a headache, or that Barbara's mother was disposed to be cross, or that she slightly underrated Astley's, and thought the clown was older than they had taken him to be last night? Kit was not surprised to hear her say so--not he. He had already had a misgiving that the inconstant actors in that dazzling vision had been doing the same thing the night before last, and would do it again that night, and the next, and for weeks and months to come, though he would not be there. Such is the difference between yesterday and today. We are all going to the play, or coming home from it.”

Charles Dickens book The Old Curiosity Shop

Source: The Old Curiosity Shop (1841), Ch. 40

Home , Night

“Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but — I hope — into a better shape.”

Charles Dickens book Great Expectations

Source: Great Expectations (1860-1861), Ch. 59

Hope , Understanding , Suffering , Heart

“Mr. Chadband is a large yellow man, with a fat smile, and a general appearance of having a good deal of train oil in his system.”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 19

Smile , Appearance , Training

““She means well,” said Mr Jarndyce, hastily. “The wind’s in the east.” “It was in the north, sir, as we came down,” observed Richard. “My dear Rick,” said Mr Jarndyce, poking the fire, “I’ll take an oath it’s either in the east, or going to be. I am always conscious of an uncomfortable sensation now and then when the wind is blowing in the east.””

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

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

“Professionally he declines and falls, and as a friend he drops into poetry.”

Charles Dickens book Our Mutual Friend

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

“In mind, she was of a strong and vigorous turn, having from her earliest youth devoted herself with uncommon ardour to the study of the law; not wasting her speculations upon its eagle flights, which are rare, but tracing it attentively through all the slippery and eel-like crawlings in which it commonly pursues its way.”

Charles Dickens book The Old Curiosity Shop

Source: The Old Curiosity Shop (1841), Ch. 33

Youth , Law , Way , Study

“Send forth the child and childish man together, and blush for the pride that libels our own old happy state, and gives its title to an ugly and distorted image.”

Charles Dickens book The Old Curiosity Shop

Source: The Old Curiosity Shop (1841), Ch. 12

Happiness

“What is peace? Is it war? No. Is it strife? No. Is it lovely, and gentle, and beautiful, and pleasant, and serene, and joyful? Oh, yes! Therefore, my friends, I wish for peace, upon you and upon yours.”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 19

Love , War , Peace , Beauty

“Your sex have such a surprising animosity against one another when you do differ.”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 54, Mr. Bucket to Mademoiselle Hortense

Sex

“The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself.”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 39

Law , Business

“It was a good thing to have a couple of thousand people all rigid and frozen together, in the palm of one's hand.”

Charles Dickens

About having a book
Letter to Mrs. Richard Watson (7 December 1857)

People

“Ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies.”

Charles Dickens book Great Expectations

Source: Great Expectations (1860-1861), Ch. 2

Question

“(Carmine Crocco) In such a crowd, so numerous and composed of such heterogeneous elements, it might have appeared almost absurd to look for discipline; but perfect discipline there was, for, whatever his other qualities might be, Crocco most undoubtedly was a "ruler of men". His word in that band was law, and the punishment of disaffection was death.”

Charles Dickens

All the year round, Vol.15 (1876), p. 281

Death , Men , Law , Appearance

“That vague kind of penitence which holidays awaken next morning.”

Charles Dickens book The Old Curiosity Shop

Source: The Old Curiosity Shop (1841), Ch. 40

Holiday

“You are a human boy, my young friend. A human boy. O glorious to be a human boy!… O running stream of sparkling joy To be a soaring human boy!”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 19

Boy , Joy

“I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don't trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance, any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it.”

Charles Dickens

Hunted Down http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/hntdn10.txt (1859)

Men , Idea

“Minerva House … was "a finishing establishment for young ladies," where some twenty girls of the ages from thirteen to nineteen inclusive, acquired a smattering of everything and a knowledge of nothing.”

Charles Dickens book Sketches by Boz

Tales, Ch. 3 : Sentiment
Sketches by Boz (1836-1837)

Age , Girl , Knowledge , Housing

“She's the ornament of her sex.”

Charles Dickens book The Old Curiosity Shop

Source: The Old Curiosity Shop (1841), Ch. 5

Sex

“in a private letter to letter to Emile de la Rue on 23 October 1857”

Charles Dickens

You know faces, when they are not brown; you know common experiences when they are not under turbans; Look at the dogs - low, treacherous, merderous, tigerous villians
I wish I were Commander in Chief over there ! I would address that Oriental character which must be powerfully spoken to, in something like the following placard, which should be vigorously translated into all native dialects, “I, The Inimitable, holding this office of mine, and firmly believing that I hold it by the permission of Heaven and not by the appointment of Satan, have the honor to inform you Hindoo gentry that it is my intention, with all possible avoidance of unnecessary cruelty and with all merciful swiftness of execution, to exterminate the Race from the face of the earth, which disfigured the earth with the late abominable atrocities"

“Under an accumulation of staggerers, no man can be considered a free agent. No man knocks himself down; if his destiny knocks him down, his destiny must pick him up again.”

Charles Dickens book The Old Curiosity Shop

Source: The Old Curiosity Shop (1841), Ch. 34

“In the little world in which children have their existence whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice. It may be only small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child is small, and its world is small, and its rocking-horse stands as many hands high, according to scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter.”

Charles Dickens book Great Expectations

Source: Great Expectations (1860-1861), Ch. 7

Children , World , Horse

“To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart.”

Charles Dickens book Master Humphrey's Clock

Master Humphrey's Clock, (1840) Vol. 1

Nature , Heart

“Well, every one for himself, and Providence for us all--as the elephant said when he danced among the chickens.”

Charles Dickens

Charles Reade, A Simpleton (1873)
Misattributed

Dance

“He had a cane, he had an eye-glass, he had a snuff-box, he had rings, he had wristbands, he had everything but any touch of nature; he was not like youth, he was not like age, he was not like anything in the world but a model of deportment.”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 14

Youth , Age , World , Nature

“My experience teaches me, Lady Dedlock, that most of the people I know would do far better to leave marriage alone. It is at the bottom of three fourths of their troubles.”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Chapter 41

Marriage , People

“If you could see my legs when I take my boots off, you'd form some idea of what unrequited affection is.”

Charles Dickens book Dombey and Son

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

Idea

“Not to put too fine a point upon it.”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 11, 19, 22

“O let us love our occupations,
Bless the squire and his relations,
Live upon our daily rations,
And always know our proper stations.”

Charles Dickens

The Chimes http://infomotions.com/etexts/literature/english/1800-1899/dickens-chimes-379.txt, Second Quarter (1844)

Love

“[T]he evil of it is that it is a world wrapped up in too much jeweller’s cotton and fine wool, and cannot hear the rushing of the larger worlds, and cannot see them as they circle round the sun. It is a deadened world, and its growth is sometimes unhealthy for want of air.”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

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

World , Evil , Sun

“I had been to see Macbeth at the theatre a night or two before and she reminded me of the faces rising out of the witches' cauldron.”

Charles Dickens book Great Expectations

Source: Great Expectations (1860-1861), Ch. 17; Pip describes Molly, Mr. Jaggers' housekeeper

Night

“The appearance presented by the streets of London an hour before sunrise, on a summer’s morning, is most striking even to the few whose unfortunate pursuits of pleasure, or scarcely less unfortunate pursuits of business, cause them to be well acquainted with the scene.  There is an air of cold, solitary desolation about the noiseless streets which we are accustomed to see thronged at other times by a busy, eager crowd, and over the quiet, closely-shut buildings, which throughout the day are swarming with life and bustle, that is very impressive.”

Charles Dickens book Sketches by Boz

Source: Sketches by Boz (1836-1837), Ch. 1 : The Streets — Morning

Life , Pleasure , Business , Appearance

“Cows are my passion.”

Charles Dickens book Dombey and Son

Source: Dombey and Son (1846-1848), Ch. 21

Passion