David Copperfield

by Charles Dickens

An aunt of my father’s, and consequently a great-aunt of mine, of whom I shall have more to relate by and by, was the principal magnate of our family. Miss Trotwood, or Miss Betsey,

‘Is the sun-dial glad, I wonder, that it can tell the time again?’

My advice is, never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time.

‘Never,’ said my aunt, ‘be mean in anything; never be false; never be cruel. Avoid those three vices, Trot, and I can always be hopeful of you.’

Jack Maldon is needy, and idle; and of those two bad things, worse things sometimes come.

‘Annie, my dear,’ said her mother, doing something to her dress. ‘See here! You have lost a bow. Will anybody be so good as find a ribbon; a cherry-coloured ribbon?’

‘It’s in vain, Trot, to recall the past, unless it works some influence upon the present.

Try not to associate bodily defects

with mental, my good friend, except for a solid reason.’

I cannot express how extremely delighted they both were, by the idea of my aunt’s being in difficulties; and how comfortable and friendly it made them.

Whatever contradictions and inconsistencies there were within me, as there are within so many of us; whatever might have been so different, and so much better; whatever I had done, in which I had perversely wandered away from the voice of my own heart; I knew nothing of. I only knew that I was fervently in earnest, when I felt the rest and peace of having Agnes near me.

There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose.’

‘because, sir, the way I look at it is, that we are all drawing on to the bottom of the hill, whatever age we are, on account of time never standing still for a single moment. So let us always do a kindness, and be over-rejoiced. To be sure!’