Quotes from Charles Dickens

People, from a congress of British subjects in America: which, strange to relate, have proved more important to the human race than any communications yet received

She did not greatly alter in appearance. The plain dark dresses, akin to mourning dresses, which she and her child wore, were as neat and as well attended to as the brighter clothes of happy days. She lost her colour, and the old and intent expression was a constant, not an occasional, thing; otherwise, she remained very pretty and comely.

There were a king with a large jaw and a queen

The beauty of the earth is but a breath, and man is but a shadow. What sympathy should a holy preacher have with either?

Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven,

I have an affection for the road ... formed in the impressibility of untried youth and hope.

if they would but think how hard it is for the very poor to have engendered in their hearts, that love of home from which all domestic virtues spring, when they live in dense and squalid masses where social decency is lost, or rather never found ... and [those who rule] strive to improve the wretched dwellings in bye-ways where only Poverty may walk ... In hollow voices from Workhouse, Hospital, and jail, this truth is preached from day to day, and has been proclaimed for years.

Whatsume'er the failings on his part, Remember reader he were that good in his hart.

Depressed and slinking though they were, eyes of fire were not wanting among them; nor compressed lips, white with what they suppressed

had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all

So expressive it was, of a hopeless and lost creature, that a famished traveler, wearied out by lonely wandering in a wilderness, would have remembered home and friends in such a tone before lying down to die.

When a man's his own enemy, it's only because he's too much his own friend; not because he's careful for everybody but himself. Pooh! Pooh! There ain't such a thing in nature.