“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.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "He was not unamiable, but he could at any time have viewed the execution of a dog, or the assassination of an infant, w…" by Charles Dickens?

Charles Dickens 116

English writer and social critic and a Journalist 1812–1870

Related quotes

“If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn't love as much in eighty years as I could in a day.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff (Ch. XIV).
Source: Wuthering Heights (1847)
Context: I was a fool to fancy for a moment that she valued Edgar Linton's attachment more than mine; if he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn't love as much in eighty years as I could in a day. And Catherine has a heart as deep as I have; the sea could be as readily contained in that house-trough as her whole affection be monopolized by him. Tush! He is scarcely a degree dearer to her than her dog, or her horse. It is not in him to be loved like me; how can she love in him what he has not?

“He loved her because it was his nature to do so, but there were times when he could not endure her love for him. There were times when it became nothing but pure idiot mystery…”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

Source: Everything That Rises Must Converge: Stories

“He would rather lose his power for doing right, than keep his power by doing wrong. Because he loves his people more than he loves his office.”

Orson Scott Card book Stone Tables

Stone Tables (1997)

“With all this he showed himself so affable and simple to those under his rule, so severe and inexorable in the administration of justice, and so vigilant and careful in seeing that his orders were duly executed, that the government of Rome never was more feared or more loved in Sardinia than when he governed that island.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Marcus Cato, sec. 7
Parallel Lives

“He was powerful and I died of love in his shadow.”

Elizabeth Gilbert (1969) American writer

“The good historian is not for any time or any country: while he loves his fatherland, he never flatters it in anything.”

François Fénelon (1651–1715) Catholic bishop

Le bon historien n'est d'aucun temps ni d'aucun pays: quoiqu'il aime sa patrie, il ne la flatte jamais en rien.
Lettre sur les Occupations de l'Académie Française, sect. 8, cited from Œuvres de Fénelon (Paris: Lefèvre, 1835) vol. 3, p. 240; translation by Patrick Riley, from Hans Blom et al. (eds.) Monarchisms in the Age of Enlightenment (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007) p. 86.

“We need to open our hearts to him and be there for our brothers and sisters. It’s time to proclaim his love and carry his message he gave us the power to be his tools and to bring his love to others. It is our duty.”

Eusebio Ramos Morales (1952) Puerto Rican bishop

Source: Puerto Rican Catholics Urged to Open Hearts to Others at Cathedral Mass https://www.cny.org/stories/puerto-rican-catholics-urged-to-open-hearts-to-others-at-cathedral-mass,4099 (1 December 2010)

“What he loved in horses was what he loved in men, the blood and the heat of the blood that ran them. All his reverence and all his fondness and all the leanings of his life were for the ardenhearted and they would always be so and never be otherwise.”

Cormac McCarthy book All the Pretty Horses

Source: All the Pretty Horses

“The man who is in love with his work will not degrade it for his customer, but while satisfying his customer will honour himself. Thus his desires will be ordered so that he puts working towards finding and following his calling first, and pleasing his customers, second. By this his customers will gain, for he will give of his best; but he will gain more, for he will be laying the foundation of a full life’. This requires great confidence.”

Leon MacLaren (1910–1994) British philosopher

Leon MacLaren, Nature of Society and Other Essays

“Incomprehensible and immutable is the love wherewith God loves. He did not begin to love us only on the day we were reconciled to Him by the blood of His Son; He loved us before the world was made, that we too might become His sons together with His Only-begotten Son, long before we had any existence….”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Source: On the Mystical Body of Christ, p.435

“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.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Charles Dickens 116

Related quotes

Related topics