American Notes for General Circulation Quotes

“Cincinnati is a beautiful city; cheerful, thriving, and animated. I have not often seen a place that commends itself so favourably and pleasantly to a stranger at the first glance as this does.”
― Charles Dickens, American Notes for General Circulation

“The inhabitants of Cincinnati are proud of their city as one of the most interesting in America: and with good reason.”
― Charles Dickens, American Notes for General Circulation

“He was a great politician of course, and explained his opinions at some length to one of our company; but I only remember that he concluded with two sentiments, one of which was, Somebody for ever; and the other, Blast everybody else! which is by no means a bad abstract of the general creed in these matters.”
― Charles Dickens, American Notes for General Circulation

“It would be well, there can be no doubt, for the American people as a whole, if they loved the Real less, and the Ideal somewhat more. It would be well, if there were greater encouragement to lightness of heart and gaiety, and a wider cultivation of what is beautiful, without being eminently and directly useful.”
― Charles Dickens, American Notes

“All that is loathsome, drooping, or decayed is here.”
― Charles Dickens, American Notes for General Circulation

“IT is nearly eight years since this book was first published. I present it, unaltered, in the Cheap Edition; and such of my opinions as it expresses, are quite unaltered too. My readers have opportunities of judging for themselves whether the influences and tendencies which I distrust in America, have any existence not in my imagination.”
― Charles Dickens, American Notes for General Circulation

“Columbus. It is distant about a hundred and twenty miles from Cincinnati, but there is a macadamised road (rare blessing!) the whole way, and the rate of travelling upon it is six miles an hour.”
― Charles Dickens, American Notes for General Circulation

“Then, such an oracle as she became in reference to the localities! and such facetiousness as was displayed by the married ladies! and such sympathy as was shown by the single ones! and such peals of laughter as the little woman herself (who would just as soon have cried) greeted every jest with!”
― Charles Dickens, American Notes for General Circulation

“But the time will come; and when, in their changed ashes, the growth of centuries unborn has struck its roots, the restless men of distant ages will repair to these again unpeopled solitudes; and their fellows, in cities far away, that slumber now, perhaps, beneath the rolling sea, will read in language strange to any ears in being now, but very old to them, of primeval forests where the axe was never heard, and where the jungled ground was never trodden by a human foot.”
― Charles Dickens, American Notes for General Circulation

“On the Monday evening, furnace fires and clanking hammers on the banks of the canal, warned us that we approached the termination of this part of our journey. After going through another dreamy place—a long aqueduct across the Alleghany River, which was stranger than the bridge at Harrisburg, being a vast low wooden chamber full of water—we emerged upon that ugly confusion of backs of buildings and crazy galleries and stairs, which always abuts on water, whether it be river, sea, canal, or ditch: and were at Pittsburg.”
― Charles Dickens, American Notes for General Circulation

“Quiet people avoid the question of the Presidency, for there will be a new election in three years and a half, and party feeling runs very high: the great constitutional feature of this institution being, that directly the acrimony of the last election is over, the acrimony of the next one begins; which is an unspeakable comfort to all strong politicians and true lovers of their country: that is to say, to ninety-nine men and boys out of every ninety-nine and a quarter.”
― Charles Dickens, American Notes for General Circulation

“Apropos this election season, America is the home of:

"Despicable trickery at elections; under-handed tamperings with public officers; and cowardly attacks upon opponents, with scurrilous newspapers for shields, and hired pens for daggers.”
― Charles Dickens, American Notes for General Circulation

“Prejudiced, I never have been otherwise than in favour of the
United States. No visitor can ever have set foot on those shores,
with a stronger faith in the Republic than I had, when I landed in
America.”
― Charles Dickens, American Notes for General Circulation