Top 1041 Quotes & Sayings by Charles Dickens - Page 2

It's my old girl that advises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained.

It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, and furnishes a complete answer to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the human species, that every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last.

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

Little Red Riding Hood was my first love. I felt that if I could have married Little Red Riding Hood, I should have known perfect bliss.

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

I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the scantiness of my resources and the difficulty of my life... I know that, but for the mercy of God, I might easily have been, for any care that was taken of me, a little robber or a vagabond.

The one great principle of English law is to make business for itself.

Although a skillful flatterer is a most delightful companion if you have him all to yourself, his taste becomes very doubtful when he takes to complimenting other people.

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

That sort of half sigh, which, accompanied by two or three slight nods of the head, is pity's small change in general society.

'Do you spell it with a 'V' or a 'W'?' inquired the judge. 'That depends upon the taste and fancy of the speller, my Lord'.

The civility which money will purchase, is rarely extended to those who have none.

Anything for the quick life, as the man said when he took the situation at the lighthouse.

When a man bleeds inwardly, it is a dangerous thing for himself; but when he laughs inwardly, it bodes no good to other people.

The age of chivalry is past. Bores have succeeded to dragons.

There are not a few among the disciples of charity who require, in their vocation, scarcely less excitement than the votaries of pleasure in theirs.

Every failure teaches a man something, if he will learn; and you are too sensible a man not to learn from this failure.

What greater gift than the love of a cat.

We never tire of the friendships we form with books.

Never close your lips to those whom you have already opened your heart.

The ocean asks for nothing but those who stand by her shores gradually attune themselves to her rhythm.

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

One should never be ashamed to cry. Tears are rain on the dust of earth.

The American elite is almost beyond redemption. . . . Moral relativism has set in so deeply that the gilded classes have become incapable of discerning right from wrong. Everything can be explained away, especially by journalists. Life is one great moral mush--sophistry washed down with Chardonnay. The ordinary citizens, thank goodness, still adhere to absolutes.... It is they who have saved the republic from creeping degradation while their 'betters' were derelict.

We need never be ashamed of our tears.

Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.

Nothing of what is nobly done is ever lost.

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

The worst of all listeners is the man who does nothing but listen.

Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own.

Some people are nobody's enemies but their own

The persons on whom I have bestowed my dearest love lie deep in their graves; but, although the happiness and delight of my life lie buried there too, I have not made a coffin of my heart, and sealed it up for ever on my best affections. Deep affliction has only made them stronger; it ought, I think, for it should refine our nature.

Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule.

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, 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.

The world belongs to those who set out to conquer it armed with self confidence and good humour.

A very little key will open a very heavy door.

Ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies.

There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.

Try to do unto others as you would have them do to you, and do not be discouraged if they fail sometimes. It is much better that they should fail than you should.

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

Consider nothing impossible, then treat possiblities as probabilities.

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.

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

I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.

New thoughts and hopes were whirling through my mind, and all the colours of my life were changing.

You know what I am going to say. I love you. What other men may mean when they use that expression, I cannot tell. What I mean is that I am under the influence of some tremendous attraction which I have resisted in vain, and which overmasters me. You could draw me to fire, you could draw me to water, you could draw me to the gallows, you could draw me to any death, you could draw me to anything I have most avoided, you could draw me to any exposure and disgrace. This and the confusion of my thoughts, so that I am fit for nothing, is what I mean by your being the ruin of me.

Reflect upon your present blessings

My advice is to never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time.

Do all the good you can and make as little fuss about it as possible.

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

When you drink of the water, don't forget the spring from which it flows.

Man cannot really improve himself without improving others.

I will live in the past, the present, and the future. The spirits of all three shall strive within me.

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

Remember, to the last, that while there is life there is hope.

Family not only need to consist of merely those whom we share blood, but also for those whom we'd give blood.

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.

The sun himself is weak when he first rises, and gathers strength and courage as the day gets on.

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