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Charles Dickens Quotes about Children

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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.

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.

Charles Dickens
Children, Parent, World
Charles Dickens (1872). “The Works of Charles Dickens”, p.145

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.

Charles Dickens
Children, Parenting, Expectations
Great Expectations ch. 8 (1861)

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.

Charles Dickens
Children, Father, Heart
Charles Dickens (2016). “Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty'”, p.25, Sai ePublications via PublishDrive

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.

Charles Dickens
Children, Blessing, Twists

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.

Charles Dickens
Children, Sea, Play
Charles Dickens (1841). “The Old Curiosity Shop”, p.102, B Times

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

Charles Dickens
Christmas, Children, Sometimes
Charles Dickens (1845). “A Christmas Carol in Prose: Being a Ghost Story of Christmas”, p.111

It being a part of Mrs. Pipchin's system not to encourage a child's mind to develop and expand itself like a young flower, but to open it by force like an oyster.

Charles Dickens
Funny, Children, Humorous
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.65

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.

Charles Dickens
Children, Grieving, Two
Charles Dickens, Hablot Knight Browne, George Cattermole, Daniel Maclise, Gino Doria (1871). “The Old Curiosity Shop Charles Dickens”, p.6

If Husain (as) had fought to quench his worldly desires…then I do not understand why his sister, wife, and children accompanied him. It stands to reason therefore, that he sacrificed purely for Islam.

Charles Dickens
Children, Wife, Islam

And it is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh from God, love us.

Charles Dickens
Inspirational, Children, Kids
"The Old Curiosity Shop".

Some philosophers tell us that selfishness is at the root of our best loves and affections. Mr. Dombey's young child was, from the beginning, so distinctly important to him as a part of his own greatness, or (which is the same thing) of the greatness of Dombey and Son, that there is no doubt his parental affection might have been easily traced, like many a goodly superstructure of fair fame, to a very low foundation.

Charles Dickens
Best Love, Children, Son
Charles Dickens (1858). “Dombey and Son ... With frontispiece by H. K. Browne”, p.57

Before I go," he said, and paused -- "I may kiss her?" It was remembered afterwards that when he bent down and touched her face with his lips, he murmured some words. The child, who was nearest to him, told them afterwards, and told her grandchildren when she was a handsome old lady, that she heard him say, "A life you love.

Charles Dickens
Children, Kissing, May
Charles Dickens, Gillen D'Arcy Wood (2003). “A Tale of Two Cities”, p.532, Barnes & Noble

I believe the power of observation in numbers of very young children to be quite wonderful for its closeness and accuracy. Indeed, I think that most grown people who are remarkable in this respect, may with greater propriety be said not to have lost the faculty, than to have acquired it; the rather, as I generally observe such men to retain a certain freshness, and gentleness, and capacity of being pleased, which are also an inheritance they have preserved from their childhood.

Charles Dickens
Children, Believe, Thinking
"The Personal History of David Copperfield".

My hair stands on end at the cost and charges of these boys. Why was I ever a father! Why was my father ever a father!

Charles Dickens
Children, Father, Boys
Charles Dickens (2002). “The British Academy/The Pilgrim Edition of the Letters of Charles Dickens: Volume 12: 1868-1870”, p.187, Clarendon Press

"Peggotty!" repeated Miss Betsey, with some indignation. "Do you mean to say, child, that any human being has gone into a Christian church, and got herself named Peggotty?"

Charles Dickens
Funny, Christian, Children
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.4

If I may ride with you, Citizen Evremonde, will you let me hold your hand? I am not afraid, but I am little and weak, and it will give me more courage." As the patient eyes were lifted to his face, he saw a sudden doubt in them, and then astonishment. He pressed the work-worn, hunger-worn young fingers, and touched his lips. "Are you dying for him?" she whispered. "And his wife and child. Hush! Yes." "Oh, you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger?" "Hush! Yes, my poor sister; to the last.

Charles Dickens
Children, Eye, Hands

and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not forty children conducting themselves as one, but every child was conducting itself like forty.

Charles Dickens
Children, Herds, Conducting
Charles Dickens (2004). “A Christmas Carol (Sparklesoup Classics)”, p.27, Sparklesoup LLC

The two stand in the fast-thinning throng of victims, but they speak as if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, heart to heart, these two children of the Universal Mother, else so wide apart and differing, have come together on the dark highway, to repair home together and to rest in her bosom.

Charles Dickens
Mother, Children, Home
Charles Dickens (2012). “Four Novels: Great Expectations, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities, and Hard Times”, p.447, Graphic Arts Books

My meaning is, that no man can expect his children to respect what he degrades.

Charles Dickens
Children, Men, Degrade
Charles Dickens (1850). “The life and adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit: With a frontispiece, from a drawing by Frank Stone”, p.341

Be natural my children. For the writer that is natural has fulfilled all the rules of art.

Charles Dickens
Art, Children, Natural

I think it must somewhere be written that the virtues of mothers shall be visited on their children, as well as the sins of their fathers.

Charles Dickens
Mother, Children, Father

If an enthusiastic, ardent, and ambitious man marry a wife on whose name there is a stain, which, though it originate in no fault of hers, may be visited by cold and sordid people upon her, and upon his children also: and, in exact proportion to his success in the world, be cast in his teeth, and made the subject of sneers against him: he may, no matter how generous and good his nature, one day repent of the connection he formed in early life; and she may have the pain and torture of knowing that he does so.

Charles Dickens
Children, Pain, Men
"Oliver Twist".

That, they never could lay their heads upon their pillows; that, they never could tolerate the idea of their wives laying their heads upon their pillows; that, they never could endure the notion of their children laying their heads upon their pillows; in short, that there never more could be, for them or theirs, any laying of heads upon pillows at all, unless the prisoner's head was taken off.

Charles Dickens
Children, Taken, Ideas
"All the Year Round: A Weekly Journal".

I never see any difference in boys. I only know two sorts of boys. Mealy boys and beef-faced boys.

Charles Dickens
Children, Boys, Two
Oliver Twist ch. 14 (1838)

It may be only small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child is small, and its world is small, and its rocking-horse stands as many hands high, according to scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter.

Charles Dickens
Horse, Children, Hands
Charles Dickens (1861). “Great Expectations”, p.86

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