Nicholas Nickleby Quotes

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

“Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“When I speak of home, I speak of the place where in default of a better--those I love are gathered together; and if that place where a gypsy's tent, or a barn, I should call it by the same good name notwithstanding.”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“Dreams are the bright creatures of poem and legend, who sport on earth in the night season, and melt away in the first beam of the sun, which lights grim care and stern reality on their daily pilgrimage through the world.”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“Most men unconsciously judge the world from themselves, and it will be very generally found that those who sneer habitually at human nature, and affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant samples.”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“Pride is one of the seven deadly sins; but it cannot be the pride of a mother in her children, for that is a compound of two cardinal virtues — faith and hope.”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“But I am thinking like a lover, or like an ass: which I suppose is pretty nearly the same.”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“Family need not be defined merely as those with whom we share blood, but as those for whom we would give our blood.”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“Gold conjures up a mist about a man, more destructive of all his old senses and lulling to his feelings than the fumes of charcoal.”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“In journeys, as in life, it is a great deal easier to go down hill than up”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“...and memory, however sad, is the best and purest link between this world and a better. But come! I'll tell you a story of another kind.”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“You cannot stain a black coat”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“Thus two people who cannot afford to play cards for money, sometimes sit down to a quiet game for love.”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“Subdue your appetites, my dears, and you've conquered human natur.”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“There are many pleasant fictions of the law in constant operation, but there is not one so pleasant or practically humorous as that which supposes every man to be of equal value in its impartial eye, and the benefits of all laws to be equally attainable by all men, without the smallest reference to the furniture of their pockets.”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“It's always something, to know you've done the most you could. But, don't leave off hoping, or it's of no use doing anything. Hope, hope to the last!”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“He had but one eye, and the popular prejudice favour runs in favour of two.”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“Mystery and disappointment are not absolutely indispensable to the growth of love, but they are, very often, its powerful auxiliaries.”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“But, there is one broad sky over all the world, and whether it be blue or cloudy, the same heaven beyond”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“What do you mean, Phib?" asked Miss Squeers, looking in her own little glass, where, like most of us, she saw - not herself, but the reflection of some pleasant image in her own brain.”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“Such is hope, Heaven's own gift to struggling mortals; pervading, like some subtle essence from the skies, all things, both good and bad; as universal as death, and more infectious than disease!”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“It was a harder day's journey than yesterday's, for there were long and weary hills to climb; and in journeys, as in life, it is a great deal easier to go down hill than up. However, they kept on, with unabated perseverance, and the hill has not yet lifted its face to heaven that perseverance will not gain the summit of at last.”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company.”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“You know, there is no language of vegetables, which converts a cucumber into a formal declaration of attachment.”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“There are some men who, living with the one object of enriching themselves, no matter by what means, and being perfectly conscious of the baseness and rascality of the means which they will use every day towards this end, affect nevertheless—even to themselves—a high tone of moral rectitude, and shake their heads and sigh over the depravity of the world. Some of the craftiest scoundrels that ever walked this earth, or rather—for walking implies, at least, an erect position and the bearing of a man—that ever crawled and crept through life by its dirtiest and narrowest ways, will gravely jot down in diaries the events of every day, and keep a regular debtor and creditor account with Heaven, which shall always show a floating balance in their own favour. Whether this is a gratuitous (the only gratuitous) part of the falsehood and trickery of such men's lives, or whether they really hope to cheat Heaven itself, and lay up treasure in the next world by the same process which has enabled them to lay up treasure in this—not to question how it is, so it is. And, doubtless, such book-keeping (like certain autobiographies which have enlightened the world) cannot fail to prove serviceable, in the one respect of sparing the recording Angel some time and labour.”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“Such is the sleight of hand by which we juggle with ourselves, and change our very weaknesses into stanch and most magnanimous virtues!”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“...let it be remembered that most men live in a world of their own, and that in that limited circle alone are they ambitious for distinction and applause. Sir Mulberry's world was peopled with profligates, and he acted accordingly.

Thus, cases of injustice, and oppression, and tyranny, and the most extravagant bigotry, are in constant occurrence among us every day. It is the custom to trumpet forth much wonder and astonishment at the chief actors therein setting at defiance so completely the opinion of the world. But there is no greater fallacy; it is precisely because they do consult the opinion of their own little world that such things take place at all, and strike the great world dumb with amazement.”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“Such is hope, heaven's own gift to struggling mortals...”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“Repining is of no use, ma’am,” said Ralph. “Of all the fruitless errands, sending a tear to look after a day that is gone, is the most fruitless.”
― Charles Dickens , Nicholas Nickleby

“If a man would commit an inexpiable offence against any society, large or small, let him be successful. They will forgive any crime except that.”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby