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.

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.

Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to anyone else.

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

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

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.

A very little key will open a very heavy door.

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 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.

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

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

We forge the chains we wear in life.

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

Life is made of ever so many partings welded together.

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

What greater gift than the love of a cat.

Charity begins at home, and justice begins next door.

Love her, love her, love her! If she favours you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces – and as it gets older and stronger, it will tear deeper – love her, love her, love her!

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

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

Reflect upon your present blessings

There are only two styles of portrait painting; the serious and the smirk.

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

On the motionless branches of some trees, autumn berries hung like clusters of coral beads, as in those fabled orchards where the fruits were jewels . . .

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

We need never be ashamed of our tears.

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.

There is probably a smell of roasted chestnuts and other good comfortable things all the time, for we are telling Winter Stories - Ghost Stories, or more shame for us - round the Christmas fire; and we have never stirred, except to draw a little nearer to it.

Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts; nothing else will ever be of any service to them.

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

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

Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.

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

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.

Every traveler has a home of his own, and he learns to appreciate it the more from his wandering.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

it is a principle of his that no man who was not a true gentleman at heart, ever was, since the world began, a true gentleman in manner. He says, no varnish can hide the grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself.

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.

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

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

That glorious vision of doing good is so often the sanguine mirage of so many good minds.

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.

There is nothing truer than physiognomy, taken in connection with manner.