225 Quotes by Charles Dickens

There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited. (Quote Meaning)

A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing. (Meaning)

A man is lucky if he is the first love of a woman. A woman is lucky if she is the last love of a man.

The most important thing in life is to stop saying 'I wish' and start saying 'I will.' Consider nothing impossible, then treat possibilities as probabilities.

Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts. (Quote Meaning)

No one is useless in this world. (Meaning)

I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.

Do all the good you can and make as little fuss about it as possible.

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A very little key will open a very heavy door. (Meaning)

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. (Quote Meaning)

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.

Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has many - not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.

Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true.

We forge the chains we wear in life. (Meaning)

If there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.

Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.

What greater gift than the love of a cat. (Meaning)

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Life is made of ever so many partings welded together. (Meaning)

Charity begins at home, and justice begins next door. (Meaning)

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!

Every failure teaches a man something, if he will learn; and you are too sensible a man not to learn from this failure.

Reflect upon your present blessings (Meaning)

I hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil or misfortune in the world.

There are only two styles of portrait painting; the serious and the smirk.

I will honor Christmas in my heart. (Quote Meaning)

On the motionless branches of some trees, autumn berries hung like clusters of coral beads, as in those fabled orchards where the fruits were jewels . . .

For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.

Never close your lips to those whom you have already opened your heart.

We need never be ashamed of our tears.

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.

Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts; nothing else will ever be of any service to them.

There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast. (Meaning)

The world belongs to those who set out to conquer it armed with self confidence and good humour.

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.

I know enough of the world now to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything.

Every traveler has a home of his own, and he learns to appreciate it the more from his wandering. (Quote Meaning)

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.

Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism, are all very good words for the lips.

New thoughts and hopes were whirling through my mind, and all the colours of my life were changing.

I am what you designed me to be.I am your blade. You cannot now complain if you also feel the hurt

A day wasted on others is not wasted on one's self. (Meaning)

Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule. (Meaning)

The sun himself is weak when he first rises, and gathers strength and courage as the day gets on. (Quote Meaning)

That glorious vision of doing good is so often the sanguine mirage of so many good minds.

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

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.

For the rest of his life, Oliver Twist remembers a single word of blessing spoken to him by another child because this word stood out so strikingly from the consistent discouragement around him.

Yes. He is quite a good fellow - nobody's enemy but his own.

One should never be ashamed to cry. Tears are rain on the dust of earth.

There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor. (Meaning)

Spring is the time of year when it is summer in the sun and winter in the shade.

A mob is usually a creature of very mysterious existence, particularly in a large city. Where it comes from, or whither it goes, few men can tell. Assembling and dispersing with equal suddenness, it is as difficult to follow to its various sources as the sea itself; nor does the parallel stop here, for the ocean is not more fickle and uncertain, more terrible when roused, more unreasonable or more cruel.

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.

I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free. Mankind will surely not deny to Harold Skimpole what it concedes to the butterflies.

There was something very comfortable in having plenty of stationery.

For nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own; and from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, it is but a succession of changes so gentle and easy that we can scarcely mark their progress.

We need never be ashamed of our tears. (Quote Meaning)

A loving heart is the truest wisdom. (Meaning)

Accidentally consumed five biscuits when I wasn't paying attention. Those biscuits are wily fellows - they leap in like sugary ninjas

Family not only need to consist of merely those whom we share blood, but also for those whom we'd give blood. (Quote Meaning)

The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again. (Meaning)

The civility which money will purchase, is rarely extended to those who have none.

All of us have wonders hidden in our breasts, only needing circumstances to evoke them.

The worst of all listeners is the man who does nothing but listen.

You have been the last dream of my soul. (Quote Meaning)

There are some upon this earth of yours,' returned the Spirit, 'who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name; who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.

There is a wisdom of the head, and a wisdom of the heart. (Meaning)

Come, let's be a comfortable couple and take care of each other! How glad we shall be, that we have somebody we are fond of always, to talk to and sit with.

Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him. (Meaning)

Ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies. (Meaning)

Consider nothing impossible, then treat possiblities as probabilities.

There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth.

I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.

Of all bad listeners, the worst and most terrible to encounter is the man who is so fond of listening that he wishes to hear, not only your conversation, but that of every other person in the room.

A boy's story is the best that is ever told.

I will live in the past, the present, and the future. The spirits of all three shall strive within me.

Minds, like bodies, will often fall into a pimpled, ill-conditioned state from mere excess of comfort.

An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself.

Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures, hover about a lighted candle. Can the candle help it?

Cheerfulness and contentment are great beautifiers, and are famous preservers of good looks.

Great men are seldom over-scrupulous in the arrangement of their attire.

A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. (Meaning)

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.

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

Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own.

There is something in sickness that breaks down the pride of manhood.

Do you spell it with a 'V' or a 'W'?' inquired the judge. 'That depends upon the taste and fancy of the speller, my Lord'.

There is a man who would give his life to keep a life you love beside you. (Quote Meaning)

The sum of the whole is this: walk and b« happy! walk and be healthy. The best of all ways to lengthen ourdays, is notas Mr. Thomas Moore has it, " ]To steal a few hours from night, my love;" but with leave, be it spoken, to walk steadily and with a purpose.

It always grieves me to contemplate the initiation of children into the ways of life when they are scarcely more than infants. It checks their confidence and simplicity, two of the best qualities that heaven gives them, and demands that they share our sorrows before they are capable of entering into our enjoyments.

External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty.

And can it be that in a world so full and busy the loss of one creature makes a void so wide and deep that nothing but the width and depth of eternity can fill it up!

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done. (Meaning)

But, tears were not the things to find their way to Mr. Bumble's soul; his heart was waterproof.

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.

Satisfy yourself beyond all doubt that you are qualified for the course to which you now aspire.....and try to achieve something in your own land before you venture on a strange one.

But injustice breeds injustice; the fighting with shadows and being defeated by them necessitates the setting up of substances to combat.

The receptive attitude enables one mind to fix itself to another as by spiritual grappling-irons. When you see that every word you utter us taken in, and weighed, and measured by your listener, you cannot free yourself from the influence of his presence. You are compelled to have in your thoughts not only the words you utter, but the man to whom they are spoken. You must not only talk, and talk well, but you must talk to him.

Spite is a little word, but it represents as strange a jumble of feelings and compound of discords, as any polysyllable in the language.

The clouds were flying fast, the wind was coming up in gusts, banging some neighboring shutters that had broken loose, twirling the rusty chimney-cowls and weathercocks, and rushing round and round a confined adjacent churchyard as if it had a mind to blow the dead citizens out of their graves. The low thunder, muttering in all quarters of the sky at once, seemed to threaten vengeance for this attempted desecration, and to mutter, "Let them rest! Let them rest!

The ocean asks for nothing but those who stand by her shores gradually attune themselves to her rhythm.

Change begets change. (Meaning)

Tis love that makes the world go round, my baby.

There are strings in the human heart that had better not be vibrated.

It is an old prerogative of kings to govern everything but their passions.

Love, though said to be afflicted with blindness, is a vigilant watchman.

We need be careful how we deal with those about us, when every death carries to some small circle of survivors, thoughts of so much omitted, and so little done- of so many things forgotten, and so many more which might have been repaired! There is no remorse so deep as that which is unavailing; if we would be spared its tortures, let us remember this, in time.

When a man bleeds inwardly, it is a dangerous thing for himself; but when he laughs inwardly, it bodes no good to other people.

Time and tide will wait for no man, saith the adage. But all men have to wait for time and tide.

Nothing that we do, is done in vain. I believe, with all my soul, that we shall see triumph.

Father Time is not always a hard parent and though he tarries for none of his children, often lays his hand lightly upon those who have used him well; making them old men and women inexorably enough, but leaving their hearts and spirits young and in full vigor. With such people the gray head is but the impression of the old fellow's hand in giving them his blessing, and every wrinkle but a notch in the quiet calendar of a well-spent life.

To a young heart everything is fun. (Quote Meaning)

There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.

The broken heart. You think you will die, but you just keep living, day after day after terrible day.

Nothing is discovered without God's intention and assistance, and I suppose every new knowledge of His works that is conceded to man to be distinctly a revelation by which men are to guide themselves.

Grief never mended no broken bones. (Meaning)

The shadows of our own desires stand between us and our better angels, and thus their brightness is eclipsed.

Have you ever had the sensation of looking at someone for the first time and ever so quickly the past and future seem to fuse ? Does that not mean something ? That we felt so much, so deeply, before even speaking?

The sun,--the bright sun, that brings back, not light alone, but new life, and hope, and freshness to man--burst upon the crowded city in clear and radiant glory. Through costly-coloured glass and paper-mended window, through cathedral dome and rotten crevice, it shed its equal ray.

Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule.

Her heart-is given him, with all its love and truth. She would joyfully die with him, or, better than that, die for him. She knows he has failings, but she thinks they have grown up through his being like one cast away, for the want of something to trust in, and care for, and think well of.

We never tire of the friendships we form with books.

True love believes everything, and bears everything, and trusts everything.

For not an orphan in the wide world can be so deserted as the child who is an outcast from a living parent's love.

Man cannot really improve himself without improving others.

Once a gentleman, and always a gentleman. (Meaning)

The year end brings no greater pleasure then the opportunity to express to you season's greetings and good wishes. May your holidays and new year be filled with joy.

The men who learn endurance, are they who call the whole world, brother.

In seasons of pestilence, some of us will have a secret attraction to the disease--a terrible passing inclination to die of it.

Every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last.

Mystery and disappointment are not absolutely indispensable to the growth of love, but they are, very often, its powerful auxiliaries.

I find my breath gets short, but it seldom gets longer as a man gets older. I take it as it comes, and make the most of it. That's the best way, ain't it?

The New Testament is the very best book that ever was or ever will be known in the world.

The dreams of childhood - it's airy fables, its graceful, beautiful, humane, impossible adornments of the world beyond; so good to be believed in once, so good to be remembered when outgrown.

It opens the lungs, washes the countenance, exercises the eyes, and softens down the temper; so cry away.

Industry is the soul of business and the keystone of prosperity. (Meaning)

Death may beget life, but oppression can beget nothing other than itself.

Friendship? Yes Please.

Let no man turn aside, ever so slightly, from the broad path of honour, on the plausible pretence that he is justified by the goodness of his end. All good ends can be worked out by good means.

What lawsuits grow out of the graves of rich men, every day; sowing perjury, hatred, and lies among near kindred, where there should be nothing but love!

A word in earnest is as good as a speech.

Remember, to the last, that while there is life there is hope. (Meaning)

When you drink of the water, don't forget the spring from which it flows.

Try to do unto others as you would have them do to you, and do not be discouraged if they fail sometimes. It is much better that they should fail than you should.

Regrets are the natural property of grey hairs.

Vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess! (Meaning)

Bring in the bottled lightning, a clean tumbler, and a corkscrew.

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.

And this is the eternal law. For, Evil often stops short at istelf and dies with the doer of it! but Good, never.

A new heart for a New Year, always! (Meaning)

A heart well worth winning, and well won. A heart that, once won, goes through fire and water for the winner, and never changes, and is never daunted.

I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don't trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it.

Many merry Christmases, many happy New Years. Unbroken friendships, great accumulations of cheerful recollections and affections on earth, and heaven for us all.

The habit of paying compliments kept a man's tongue oiled without any expense.

It is not easy to walk alone in the country without musing upon something.

Poetry makes life what lights and music do the stage.

So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise.

Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else.

This is a world of action, and not moping and droning in.

The night crept on apace, the moon went down, the stars grew pale and dim, and morning, cold as they, slowly approached. Then, from behind a distant hill, the noble sun rose up, driving the mists in phantom shapes before it, and clearing the earth of their ghostly forms till darkness came again.

The wind is rushing after us, and the clouds are flying after us, and the moon is plunging after us, and the whole wild night is in pursuit of us; but, so far we are pursued by nothing else.

things cannot be expected to turn up of themselves. We must in a measure assist to turn them up

Some people are nobody's enemies but their own

We can refute assertions, but who can refute silence?

It is the last straw that breaks the camel's back. (Meaning)

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. (Meaning)

There are chords in the human heart- strange, varying strings- which are only struck by accident; which will remain mute and senseless to appeals the most passionate and earnest, and respond at last to the slightest casual touch.

Detestation of the high is the involuntary homage of the low.

You are in every line I have ever read. (Meaning)

No space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused

He would make a lovely corpse. (Meaning)

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.

Constancy in love is a good thing; but it means nothing, and is nothing, without constancy in every kind of effort.

One always begins to forgive a place as soon as it's left behind.

I have been very fortunate in worldly matters; many men have worked much harder, and not succeeded half so well; but I never could have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one object at a time, no matter how quickly its successor should come upon its heels, which I then formed.

It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home. (Meaning)

Come, then," returned the nephew gaily. "What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You're rich enough.

The forces that affect our lives, the influences that mold and shape us, are often like whispers in a different room, teasingly indistinct, apprehended only with difficulty.

Remembrance, like a candle, burns brightest at Christmastime.

Death is a mighty, universal truth.

Trifles make the sum of life. (Meaning)

The aim of talk should be like the aim of a flying arrow -- to hit the mark; but to this end there must be a mark to hit, that is, there must be a listener.

Subdue your appetites, my dears, and you've conquered human nature .

An observer of men who finds himself steadily repelled by some apparently trifling thing in a stranger is right to give it great weight. It may be the clue to the whole mystery. A hair or two will show where a lion is hidden. A very little key will open a very heavy door.

Credit is a system whereby a person who can not pay gets another person who can not pay to guarantee that he can pay.

Virtue shows quite as well in rags and patches as she does in purple and fine linen.

There is nothing--no, nothing--innocent or good, that dies and is forgotten; let us hold to that faith or none. An infant, a prattling child, dying in the cradle, will live again in the better thoughts of those that loved it, and play its part through them in the redeeming actions of the world, though its body be burnt to ashes or drowned in the deep sea.

Such is hope, heaven's own gift to struggling mortals, pervading, like some subtle essence from the skies, all things both good and bad.

There is prodigious strength in sorrow and despair. (Meaning)

Never imitate the eccentricities of genius, but toil after it in its truer flights. They are not so easy to follow, but they lead to higher regions.

How beautiful you are! You are more beautiful in anger than in repose. I don't ask you for your love; give me yourself and your hatred; give me yourself and that pretty rage; give me yourself and that enchanting scorn; it will be enough for me.

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.

Mr Jarndyce, and prevented his going any farther, when he had remarked that there were two classes of charitable people: one, the people who did a little and made a great deal of noise; the other, the people who did a great deal and made no noise at all.

There is no substitute for thoroughgoing, ardent, and sincere earnestness.

Keep up appearances whatever you do. (Meaning)

Least said, soonest mended (Meaning)

The two commonest mistakes in judgement ... are, the confounding of shyness with arrogance - a very common mistake indeed - and the not understanding that an obstinate nature exists in a perpetual struggle with itself.

He did each single thing as if he did nothing else.

Her contempt for me was so strong, that it became infectious, and I caught it.

I had considered how the things that never happen, are often as much realities to us, in their effects, as those that are accomplished.

A silent look of affection and regard when all other eyes are turned coldly away-the consciousness that we possess the sympathy and affection of one being when all others have deserted us-is a hold, a stay, a comfort, in the deepest affliction, which no wealth could purchase, or power bestow.

What such people miscall their religion, is a vent for their bad humours and arrogance.

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

Love is in all things a most wonderful teacher.

We lawyers are always curious, always inquisitive, always picking up odds and ends for our patchwork minds, since there is no knowing when and where they may fit into some corner.

Everybody said so. Far be it from me to assert that what everybody says must be true. Everybody is, often, as likely to be wrong as right.

I have been, as the phrase is, liberally educated, and am fit for nothing.

Do the wise thing and the kind thing too, and make the best of us and not the worst.

Nothing of what is nobly done is ever lost.

It was one of those hot, silent nights, when people sit at windows listening for the thunder which they know will shortly break; when they recall dismal tales of hurricanes and earthquakes; and of lonely travellers on open plains, and lonely ships at sea, struck by lightning.

Ride on! Ride on over all obstacles and win the race. (Meaning)

Money and goods are certainly the best of references.

He knew enough of the world to know that there is nothing in it better than the faithful service of the heart.

There is something good in all weathers. If it doesn't happen to be good for my work today, it's good for some other man's today... and will come around for me tomorrow.

The more man knows of man, the better for the common brotherhood among men.

Morning drew on apace. The air became more sharp and piercing, as its first dull hue: the death of night, rather than the birth of day: glimmered faintly in the sky. The objects which had looked dim and terrible in the darkness, grew more and more defined, and gradually resolved into their familiar shapes. The rain came down, thick and fast; and pattered, noisily, among the leafless bushes.

In every life, no matter how full or empty ones purse, there is tragedy. It is the one promise life always fulfills. Thus, happiness is a gift, and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes, and to add to other peoples store of it.

A contented spirit is the sweetness of existence.

A good thing can't be cruel.

Joe gave me some more gravy.

I could settle down into a state of equable low spirits, and resign myself to coffee.

But the mere truth won't do. You must have a lawyer.

In love of home, the love of country has its rise. (Meaning)

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.

Them which is of other naturs thinks different.

May I tell you why it seems to me a good thing for us to remember wrong that has been done us? That we may forgive it.

Christmas may not bring a single thing; still, it gives me a song to sing.

Surprises, like misfortunes, seldom come alone.

We must scrunch or be scrunched.

I wear the chains I forged in life. (Meaning)

Eccentricities of genius.

The American woman is a monstrosity.

A man must take the fat with the lean.

Heaven suits the back to the burden.

Sudden shifts and changes are no bad preparation for political life.