Charles Dickens > Quotes

“There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate.”
― Charles Dickens

“There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.”
― Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

“A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.”
― Charles Dickens

“It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“Never close your lips to those whom you have already opened your heart.”
― Charles Dickens

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.”
― Charles Dickens

“We need never be ashamed of our tears.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before--more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“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

“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, Great Expectations

“Every traveler has a home of his own, and he learns to appreciate it the more from his wandering.”
― Charles Dickens

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“What greater gift than the love of a cat.”
― Charles Dickens

“I hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil or misfortune in the world.”
― Charles Dickens

“No one who can read, ever looks at a book, even unopened on a shelf, like one who cannot.”
― Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend

“A loving heart is the truest wisdom.”
― Charles Dickens

“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Love her, love her, love her! If she favours you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces – and as it gets older and stronger, it will tear deeper – love her, love her, love her!”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

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

“There is a wisdom of the head, and... there is a wisdom of the heart.”
― Charles Dickens, Hard Times

“I wear the chain I forged in life....I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“You have been the last dream of my soul.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. ”
― Charles Dickens

“Family not only need to consist of merely those whom we share blood, but also for those whom we'd give blood.”
― Charles Dickens

“I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I love her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

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

“The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“To a young heart everything is fun.”
― Charles Dickens

“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“The most important thing in life is to stop saying 'I wish' and start saying 'I will.' Consider nothing impossible, then treat possiblities as probabilities.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“There either is or is not, that’s the way things are. The colour of the day. The way it felt to be a child. The saltwater on your sunburnt legs. Sometimes the water is yellow, sometimes it’s red. But what colour it may be in memory, depends on the day. I’m not going to tell you the story the way it happened. I’m going to tell it the way I remember it.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“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 displace with 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.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Pause you who read this, and think for a 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, Great Expectations

“It is because I think so much of warm and sensitive hearts, that I would spare them from being wounded.”
― Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

“The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.”
― Charles Dickens

“For you, and for any dear to you, I would do anything. If my career were of that better kind that there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. Try to hold me in your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere in this one thing. The time will come, the time will not be long in coming, when new ties will be formed about you--ties that will bind you yet more tenderly and strongly to the home you so adorn--the dearest ties that will ever grace and gladden you. O Miss Manette, when the little picture of a happy father's face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you!”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it.”
― Charles Dickens

“My advice is to never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time.”
― Charles Dickens

“Although a skillful flatterer is a most delightful companion if you have him all to yourself, his taste becomes very doubtful when he takes to complimenting other people.”
― Charles Dickens

“So throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“I'll tell you," said she, in the same hurried passionate whisper, "what real love it. It is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter - as I did!”
― Charles Dickens

“Give me a moment, because I like to cry for joy. It's so delicious, John dear, to cry for joy.”
― Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend