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Charles Dickens Quotes - Page 8

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

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

Charles Dickens
May, Oppression, Begets

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.

Charles Dickens
Courage, Integrity, Mean
Charles Dickens (1868). “Barnaby Rudge: And Hard Times”, p.374

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

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

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.

Charles Dickens
Ocean, Men, Sea
Charles Dickens (1867). “Charles Dickens's works. Charles Dickens ed. [18 vols. of a 21 vol. set. Wanting A child's history of England; Christmas stories; The mystery of Edwin Drood].”, p.244

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.

Charles Dickens
Determination, Men, Order
Charles Dickens (1858). “The Personal History of David Copperfield ... With Frontispiece by H. K. Browne”, p.356

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

Charles Dickens
Fashion, Men, Literature
Charles Dickens (2015). “The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, Volume 1 (of 2) (Illustrations)”, p.8, E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY

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.

Charles Dickens
Men, Cities, Glasses
Charles Dickens (1839). “Oliver Twist”, p.197

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

Charles Dickens
Turns, Expected
Charles Dickens (2016). “David Copperfield (World Classics, Unabridged)”, p.309, Vij Books India Pvt Ltd

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.

Charles Dickens
Arrows, Flying, Listening
charles dickens (1874). “all the year round”, p.179

A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!

Charles Dickens
Heart, Night, Cities
A Tale of Two Cities bk. 1, ch. 3 (1859)

The American woman is a monstrosity.

Charles Dickens
Monstrosity, American Woman

My faith in the people governing is, on the whole, infinitesimal; my faith in the people governed is, on the whole, illimitable.

Charles Dickens
People, Whole, Governing
Speech at Birmingham and Midland Institute, 27 September 1869, in K. J. Fielding (ed.) 'The Speeches of Charles Dickens' (1960)

The law is an ass, an idiot.

Charles Dickens
Law, Idiot, Ass

The sum of the whole is this: walk and be happy, walk and be healthy. "The best of all ways to lengthen our days" is not, as 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. The wandering man knows of certain ancients, far gone in years, who have staved off infirmities and dissolution by earnest walking,-hale fellows close upon eighty and ninety, but brisk as boys.

Charles Dickens
Men, Boys, Night

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

Charles Dickens
Commitment, Ifs, Interesting Characters
Charles Dickens (1866). “Works of Charles Dickens”, p.205

Joe gave me some more gravy.

Charles Dickens
Gravy
Charles Dickens (2016). “British Classics: Great Expectations”, p.23, The Planet

Friendship? Yes Please.

Charles Dickens
Friendship, Please

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

Charles Dickens
Reality, Words Of Wisdom, Accomplished
Charles Dickens (2006). “David Copperfield”, p.723, Penguin

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

Charles Dickens
Secret, Disease, Pestilence
Charles Dickens (2013). “A Tale of Two Cities Thrift Study Edition”, p.218, Courier Corporation

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

Charles Dickens
Food, Human Nature, Abstinence
Nicholas Nickleby ch. 5 (1839)

Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer...? If I could work my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' upon his lips should be boiled with his won pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!

Charles Dickens
Funny, Christmas, Heart
"A Christmas Carol". Book by Charles Dickens, 1843.

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

Charles Dickens
Fighting, Words Of Wisdom, Shadow
Charles Dickens (1853). “Bleak House”, p.391

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

Charles Dickens
Hope, Struggle, Essence
Charles Dickens (1872). “A Cyclopedia of the Best Thoughts of Charles Dickens”, p.228

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.

Charles Dickens
Love, Heart, Winning
Charles Dickens (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Charles Dickens (Illustrated)”, p.7985, Delphi Classics

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

Charles Dickens
Love, Mind, Unhappy
Charles Dickens (1992). “David Copperfield”, p.564, Wordsworth Editions

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