Great Expectations Quotes

“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

“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

“We need never be ashamed of our tears.”
― 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

“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

“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 unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, 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

“Out of my thoughts! 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. But, in this separation I associate you only with the good, and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you!”
― 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

“I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“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

“Spring is the time of year when it is summer in the sun and winter in the shade.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“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 its course would have been. 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

“Ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.”
― 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.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“I am what you designed me to be.I am your blade. You cannot now complain if you also feel the hurt”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures hover about a lighted candle. Can the candle help it?”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“The broken heart. You think you will die, but you just keep living, day after day after terrible day.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“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.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“No varnish can hide the grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so, the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.”
― 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.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“I stole her heart away and put ice in its place.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“You are in every line I have ever read.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“We changed again, and yet again, and it was now too late and too far to go back, and I went on. And the mists had all solemnly risen now, and the world lay spread before me.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“I looked at the stars, and considered how awful it would be for a man to turn his face up to them as he froze to death, and see no help or pity in all the glittering multitude.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“You must know,’ said Estella, condescending to me as a beautiful and brilliant woman might, ‘that I have no heart—if that has anything to do with my memory.’
I got through some jargon to the effect that I took the liberty of doubting that. That I knew better. That there could be no such beauty without it.
‘Oh! I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I have no doubt,’ said Estella, ‘and, of course, if it ceased to beat I should cease to be. But you know what I mean. I have no softness there, no—sympathy—sentiment—nonsense.’
… ‘I am serious,’ said Estella, not so much with a frown (for her brow was smooth) as with a darkening of her face; ‘If we are to be thrown much together, you had better believe it at once. No!’ imperiously stopping me as I opened my lips. ‘I have not bestowed my tenderness anywhere. I have never had any such thing.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations