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Charles Dickens Quotes - Page 18

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You will profit by the failure, and will avoid it another time. I have done a similar thing myself, in construction, often. Every failure teaches a man something, if he will learn.

You will profit by the failure, and will avoid it another time. I have done a similar thing myself, in construction, often. Every failure teaches a man something, if he will learn.

Charles Dickens
Men, Words Of Wisdom, Done
CHARLES DICKENS (1867). “LITTLE DORRIT”, p.520

The great grindstone, Earth, had turned when Mr. Lorry looked out again, and the sun was red on the courtyard. But, the lesser grindstone stood alone there in the calm morning air, with red upon it that the sun had never give, and would never take away.

Charles Dickens
Morning, Air, Giving
Charles Dickens (2004). “The Shorter Novels of Charles Dickens”, p.837, Wordsworth Editions

It is known, to the force of a single pound weight, what the engine will do; but, not all the calculators of the National Debt can tell me the capacity for good or evil, for love or hatred, for patriotism or discontent, for the decomposition of virtue into vice, or the reverse.

Charles Dickens
Evil, Hatred, Vices
Charles Dickens (2001). “Hard Times”, p.52, Courier Corporation

Discipline must be maintained.

Charles Dickens
Discipline
'Bleak House' (1853) ch. 27 (Mr Bagnet)

Novelties please less than they impress.

Charles Dickens
Novelty, Impress, Please

Missionaries are perfect nuisances and leave every place worse than they found it.

Charles Dickens
Perfect, Religion, Atheism
Charles Dickens, Georgina Hogarth, Mamie Dickens, Laurence Hutton (1893). “The Works of Charles Dickens: Letters and Speeches”

I could not help wondering in my own mind....how it came to pass that our joints of meat were of such extraordinary shapes - and whether our butcher contracted for all the deformed sheep that came into the world; but I kept my reflections to myself.

Charles Dickens
Reflection, Sheep, Mind

It is well for a man to respect his own vocation whatever it is and to think himself bound to uphold it and to claim for it the respect it deserves

Charles Dickens
Respect, Men, Thinking
Charles Dickens, George Cruikshank (1868). “The Works of Charles Dickens: Little Dorrit”, p.346

Please, sir, I want some more.

Charles Dickens
Want, Please, Workhouses
Oliver Twist ch. 2 (1838)

Women can always put things in fewest words. Except when it's blowing up; and then they lengthens it out.

Charles Dickens
Blowing Up
Charles Dickens “Oliver Twist”, Lulu.com

He had but one eye, and the popular prejudice runs in favor of two.

Charles Dickens
Running, Eye, Two
"Nicholas Nickleby".

Old Marley was as dead as a doornail. Mind! I don't mean to say that, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a doornail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a doornail.

Charles Dickens
Country, Mean, Hands
Charles Dickens (1858). “A Christmas Carol”, p.1

I want to escape from myself. For when I do start up and stare myself seedily in the face, as happens to be my case at present, my blankness is inconceivable--indescribable--my misery amazing.

Charles Dickens
Want, Faces, Misery
Charles Dickens, Jenny Hartley (2012). “The Selected Letters of Charles Dickens”, p.321, Oxford University Press

It is an exquisite and beautiful thing in our nature, that, when the heart is touched and softened by some tranquil happiness or affectionate feeling, the memory of the dead comes over it most powerfully and irresistibly. It would seem almost as though our better thoughts and sympathies were charms, in virtue of which the soul is enabled to hold some vague and mysterious intercourse with the spirits of those whom we loved in life. Alas! how often and how long may these patient angels hover around us, watching for the spell which is so soon forgotten!

Charles Dickens
Beautiful, Death, Memories

The very dogs were all asleep, and the flies, drunk with moist sugar in the grocer's shop, forgot their wings and briskness, and baked to death in dusty corners of the window.

Charles Dickens
Dog, Wings, Drunk
Charles Dickens (1868). “The Old Curiosity Shop: And Reprinted Pieces”, p.128

Prowling about the rooms, sitting down, getting up, stirring the fire, looking out the window, teasing my hair, sitting down to write, writing nothing, writing something and tearing it up...

Charles Dickens
Writing, Fire, Hair

I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free.

Charles Dickens
Freedom, Butterfly, Liberty
Bleak House ch. 6 (1853)

God bless us, every one!

Charles Dickens
Blessing, God Bless, Bless
A Christmas Carol stave 3 (1843)

I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I have no doubt, and, of course, if it ceased to beat, I would cease to be. But you know what I mean. I have no softness there, no—sympathy—sentiment—nonsense.

Charles Dickens
Heart, Mean, Doubt
Charles Dickens (1881). “Great Expectations”, p.267

We all draw a little and compose a little, and none of us have any idea of time or money.

Charles Dickens
Art, Philosophy, Ideas
Charles Dickens (1853). “Bleak House”, p.632

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
Inspirational, Perseverance, Journey
Charles Dickens (1995). “Nicholas Nickleby”, p.262, Wordsworth Editions

Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it.

Charles Dickens
Winter, Darkness, Scrooge
Charles Dickens (1845). “A Christmas Carol in Prose: Being a Ghost Story of Christmas”, p.22

I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief.

Charles Dickens
Lying, Night, Pockets
Charles Dickens (2009). “The Complete Works of Charles Dickens: Great Expectations”, p.14, Cosimo, Inc.

if the world go wrong, it was, in some off-hand manner, never meant to go right.

Charles Dickens
Hands, World, Ifs
Charles Dickens (2010). “Bleak House”, p.65, Broadview Press

I confess I have yet to learn that a lesson of the purest good may not be drawn from the vilest evil.

Charles Dickens
Evil, Lessons, May
Charles Dickens (1842). “Oliver Twist”, p.3

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