Quotes from Charles Dickens

the one woman who had stood conspicuous, knitting, still knitted on with the steadfastness of Fate.

Because thou hast made the Lord, which is thy refuge, even the most high they habitation. There shall be no evil before thee, neither shall any plague come by thy dwelling. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him." -Peter Cratchit

He had a certain air of being a handsome man--which he was not; and a certain air of being a well-bred man--which he was not. It was mere swagger and challenge; but in this particular, as in many others, blustering assertion goes for proof, half over the world.

I have often remarked- I suppose everybody has- that one's going away from a familiar place, would seem to be the signal for a change in it.

How slight a thing will disturb the equanimity of our frail minds!

We must have humbug, we all like humbug, we couldn't get on without humbug.

was a fundamental principle of the Gradgrind philosophy that everything was to be paid for. Nobody was ever on any account to give anybody anything, or render anybody help without purchase. Gratitude was to be abolished, and the virtues springing from it were not to be. Every inch of the existence of mankind, from birth to death, was to be a bargain across a counter. And if we didn't get to Heaven that way, it was not a politico-economical place, and we had no business there.

Nature forgot to shade him off, I think... A little too boisterous--like the sea. A little too vehement--like a bull who has made up his mind to consider every colour scarlet. But I grant a sledge-hammering sort of merit in him!

their] children were not growing up or being brought up, but were tumbling up.

You can't make a head and brains out of a brass knob with nothing in it. You couldn't do it when your uncle George was living much less when he's dead.

It was so like Smith's work, so much more like the top of a strongly spiked wall than a head of hair, that the best of players at leap-frog might have declined him, as the most dangerous man in the world to go over.

And so, as Tiny Tim said, 'A Merry Christmas to us all; God bless us, everyone!

If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces-- love her, love her, love her!

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.

What am I doing? Tearing myself. My usual occupation at most times.

There was an innocent piece of dinner-furniture that went upon easy castors and was kept over a livery stable-yard in Duke Street, Saint James's, when not in use, to whom the Veneerings were a source of blind confusion. The name of this article was Twemlow.

I'm a straw upon the surface of the deep, and am tossed in all directions by the elephants

I have often thought him since, like the steam hammer, that can crush a man or pat an eggshell, in his combination of strength with gentleness

I saw that the bride within the bridal dress has withered like the dress, and like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes

a lady of what is commonly called an uncertain temper --a phrase which being interpreted signifies a temper tolerably certain to make everybody more or less uncomfortable.

The society of girls is a very delightful thing, Copperfield. It's not professional, but it's very delightful.

I find the nights long, for I sleep but little, and think much.

Ode to an Expiring Frog Can I view thee panting, lying On thy stomach, without sighing! Can I unmoved see thee dying On a log, Expiring frog! Say, have fiends in shape of boys, With wild halloo and brutal noise, Hunted thee from marshy joys, With a dog, Expiring frog?

Fairy-land to visit, but a desert to live in