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Its very strange, said Mr. Dick that I never can get that quite right; I never can make that perfectly clear.
-Charles Dickens
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A prison taint was on everything there. The imprisoned air, the imprisoned light, the imprisoned damps, the imprisoned men, were all deteriorated by confinement. As the captive men were faded and haggard, so the iron was rusty, the stone was slimy, the wood was rotten, the air was faint, the light was dim. Like a well, like a vault, like a tomb, the prison had no knowledge of the brightness outside; and would have kept its polluted atmosphere intact, in one of the spice islands of the Indian Ocean.
-Charles Dickens
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God bless us every one! said Tiny Tim, the last of all.
-Charles Dickens
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If the law supposes that, said Mr. Bumble, the law is a assa idiot. If thats the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experienceby experience.
-Charles Dickens
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Abstinence
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Subdue your appetites, my dears, and you've conquered human nature .
-Charles Dickens
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Age
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Father Time is not always a hard parent, and, though he tarries for none of his children, often lays his hand lightly upon those who have used him well; making them old men and women inexorably enough, but leaving their hearts and spirits young and in full vigour. With such people the grey head is but the impression of the old fellow's hand in giving them his blessing, and every wrinkle but a notch in the quiet calendar of a well-spent life.
-Charles Dickens
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Alcohol/Alcoholism
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Bring in the bottled lightning, a clean tumbler, and a corkscrew.
-Charles Dickens
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America
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If its individual citizens, to a man, are to be believed, it always is depressed, and always is stagnated, and always is at an alarming crisis, and never was otherwise; though as a body, they are ready to make oath upon the Evangelists, at any hour of the day or night, that it is the most thriving and prosperous of all countries on the habitable globe.
-Charles Dickens
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Anger
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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.
-Charles Dickens
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Baby, Babies
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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.
-Charles Dickens
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Boredom
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I am quite serious when I say that I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these United States. No man can form an adequate idea of the real meaning of the word, without coming here.
-Charles Dickens
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Business
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Industry is the soul of business and the keystone of prosperity.
-Charles Dickens
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Change
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Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own; and from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, it is but a succession of changes so gentle and easy that we can scarcely mark their progress.
-Charles Dickens
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Change begets change. Nothing propagates so fast. If a man habituated to a narrow circle of cares and pleasures, out of which he seldom travels, step beyond it, though for never so brief a space, his departure from the monotonous scene on which he has been an actor of importance would seem to be the signal for instant confusion. The mine which Time has slowly dug beneath familiar objects is sprung in an instant; and what was rock before, becomes but sand and dust.
-Charles Dickens
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Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.
-Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
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Charity
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Charity begins at home, and justice begins next door.
-Charles Dickens
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Children
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I never see any difference in boys. I only know two sorts of boys. Mealy boys and beef-faced boys.
-Charles Dickens
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Communication
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Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true.
-Charles Dickens
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Company, Companions
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Fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of friendship; and pass the rosy wine.
-Charles Dickens
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Concentration
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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...
-Charles Dickens
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Creativity
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The whole difference between construction and creation is this; that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.
-Charles Dickens
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Credit
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A person who can't pay gets another person who can't pay to guarantee that he can pay. Like a person with two wooden legs getting another person with two wooden legs to guarantee that he has got two natural legs. It don't make either of them able to do a walking-match.
-Charles Dickens
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Crime
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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.
-Charles Dickens
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Crying
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It opens the lungs, washes the countenance, exercises the eyes, and softens down the temper; so cry away.
-Charles Dickens
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Cynicism
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I believe no satirist could breathe this air. If another Juvenal or Swift could rise up among us tomorrow, he would be hunted down. If you have any knowledge of our literature, and can give me the name of any man, American born and bred, who has anatomized our follies as a people, and not as this or that party; and who has escaped the foulest and most brutal slander, the most inveterate hatred and intolerant pursuit; it will be a strange name in my ears, believe me.
-Charles Dickens
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Books by and about Charles Dickens