Charles Dickens Quotes
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251. “When the moon shines very brilliantly, a solitude and stillness seem to proceed from her that influence even crowded places full of life.”

— Charles Dickens

252. “What are the odds so long as the fire of the soul is kindled at the taper of conviviality, and the wing of friendship never molts a feather?”

— Charles Dickens

253. “Poetry makes life what lights and music do the stage.”

— Charles Dickens

254. “The last trumpet ever to be sounded shall blow even algebra to wreck.”

— Charles Dickens

255. “I love these little people; and it is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh from God, love us.”

— Charles Dickens

256. “There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth.”

— Charles Dickens

257. “The change was made in me; the thing was done. Well or ill done, excusably or inexcusably, it was done.”

— Charles Dickens

258. “I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief.”

— Charles Dickens

259. “And O there are days in this life, worth life and worth death.”

— Charles Dickens

260. “In the moonlight which is always sad, as the light of the sun itself is – as the light called human life is – at its coming and its going.”

— Charles Dickens

261. “Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

— Charles Dickens

262. “In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley.”

— Charles Dickens

263. “Vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!”

— Charles Dickens

264. “Stranger, pause and ask thyself the question, Canst thou do likewise? If not, with a blush retire.”

— Charles Dickens

265. “Man,” said the Ghost, “if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man’s child. Oh God! to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!”

— Charles Dickens

266. “Circumstances beyond my individual control.”

— Charles Dickens

267. “You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. Stick to Facts, sir!”

— Charles Dickens

268. “I have made up my mind that I must have money, Pa. I feel that I can’t beg it, borrow it, or steal it; and so I have resolved that I must marry it.”

— Charles Dickens

269. “True love believes everything, and bears everything, and trusts everything.”

— Charles Dickens

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

— Charles Dickens

271. “I looked at the stars, and considered how awful it would be for a man to turn his face up to them as he froze to death, and see no help or pity in all the glittering multitude.”

— Charles Dickens

272. “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

273. “I know enough of the world now to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything.”

— Charles Dickens

274. “Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism, are all very good words for the lips.”

— Charles Dickens

275. “My heart is set, as firmly as ever heart of man was set on woman. I have no thought, no view, no hope, in life beyond her; and if you oppose me in this great stake, you take my peace and happiness in your hands, and cast them to the wind.”

— Charles Dickens

276. “Dumb as a drum vith a hole in it, sir.”

— Charles Dickens

277. “I am not old, but my young way was never the way to age.”

— Charles Dickens

278. “There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.”

— Charles Dickens

279. “That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. 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.”

— Charles Dickens

280. “There is no such passion in human nature, as the passion for gravy among commercial gentlemen.”

— Charles Dickens

281. “Constancy in love is a good thing; but it means nothing, and is nothing, without constancy in every kind of effort.”

— Charles Dickens

282. “It is because I think so much of warm and sensitive hearts, that I would spare them from being wounded.”

— Charles Dickens

283. “I am no more annoyed when I think of the expression, than I should be annoyed by a man’s opinion of a picture of mine, who had no eye for pictures; or of a piece of music of mine, who had no ear for music.”

— Charles Dickens

284. “All of us have wonders hidden in our breasts, only needing circumstances to evoke them.”

— Charles Dickens

285. “The most important thing in life is to stop saying ‘I wish’ and start saying ‘I will.”

— Charles Dickens

286. “Accidents will occur in the best regulated families.”

— Charles Dickens

287. “The cramped monotony of my existence grinds me away by the grain.”

— Charles Dickens

288. “The more man knows of man, the better for the common brotherhood among men.”

— Charles Dickens

289. “Everybody said so. Far be it from me to assert that what everybody says must be true. Everybody is, often, as likely to be wrong as right.”

— Charles Dickens

290. “It was very dark; but in the murky sky there were masses of cloud which shone with a lurid light, like monstrous heaps of copper that had been heated in a furnace, and were growing cold.”

— Charles Dickens

291. “I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I have no doubt, and, of course, if it ceased to beat, I would cease to be. But you know what I mean. I have no softness there, no – sympathy – sentiment – nonsense.”

— Charles Dickens

292. “Yes. He is quite a good fellow – nobody’s enemy but his own.”

— Charles Dickens

293. “It is required of every man,” the ghost returned, “that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and, if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death.”

— Charles Dickens

294. “Lawyers hold that there are two kinds of particularly bad witnesses – a reluctant witness, and a too-willing witness.”

— Charles Dickens

295. “I verily believe that her not remembering and not minding in the least, made me cry again, inwardly – and that is the sharpest crying of all.”

— Charles Dickens

296. “Veels vithin veels, a prison in a prison.”

— Charles Dickens

297. “I don’t know what day of the month it is!” said Scrooge. “I don’t know how long I’ve been among the Spirits. I don’t know anything. I’m quite a baby. Never mind. I don’t care. I’d rather be a baby. Hallo! Whoop!”

— Charles Dickens

298. “Thus violent deeds live after men upon the earth, and traces of war and bloodshed will survive in mournful shapes long after those who worked the desolation are but atoms of earth themselves.”

— Charles Dickens

299. “I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!”

— Charles Dickens

300. “They are so filthy and bestial that no honest man would admit one into his house for a water-closet doormat.”

— Charles Dickens