Charles Dickens Quotes

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.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

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

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart.

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

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

Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.

I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.

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.

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

No one who can read, ever looks at a book, even unopened on a shelf, like one who cannot.

There is a wisdom of the head, and a wisdom of the heart.

A loving heart is the truest wisdom.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

A very little key will open a very heavy door.

We forge the chains we wear in life.

Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of Earth, overlaying our hard hearts.

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.

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

Life is made of ever so many partings welded together.

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 subject at a time.

And it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!

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

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

I do not know the American gentleman, God forgive me for putting two such words together.

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

Dreams are the bright creatures of poem and legend, who sport on earth in the night season, and melt away in the first beam of the sun, which lights grim care and stern reality on their daily pilgrimage through the world.

God bless us, every one!

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

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!

But I am sure that I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round...as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely.

He would make a lovely corpse.

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!

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.

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

It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations.

Charity begins at home, and justice begins next door.

Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.

I feel an earnest and humble desire, and shall do till I die, to increase the stock of harmless cheerfulness.

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

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.

Fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of friendship; and pass the rosy wine.

…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.

Any man may be in good spirits and good temper when he's well dressed. There ain't much credit in that.

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

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

With affection beaming in one eye and calculation shining out of the other.

A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to the world!

Accidents will occur in the best regulated families.

Oh the nerves, the nerves; the mysteries of this machine called man! Oh the little that unhinges it, poor creatures that we are!

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

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

"It wasn't the wine," murmured Mr. Snodgrass, in a broken voice. "It was the salmon."

Probably every new and eagerly expected garment ever put on since clothes came in, fell a trifle short of the wearer's expectation.

Never sign a valentine with your own name.

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

Whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do it well; whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself completely; in great aims and in small I have always thoroughly been in earnest.

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.

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.

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

The law is an ass, an idiot.

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

If the law supposes that,' said Mr Bumble...' the law is an ass - an idiot.

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