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Life
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Anything for the quick life, as the man said when he took the situation at the lighthouse.
-Charles Dickens
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Life is made of ever so many partings welded together.
-Charles Dickens
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This is a world of action, and not for moping and droning in.
-Charles Dickens
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Let us be moral. Let us contemplate existence.
-Charles Dickens
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Love
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A loving heart is the truest wisdom.
-Charles Dickens
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Marriage
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When you're a married man, Samivel, you'll understand a good many things as you don't understand now; but whether it's worth while, going through so much, to learn so little, as the charity-boy said when he got to the end of the alphabet, is a matter o taste.
-Charles Dickens
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I revere the memory of Mr. F. as an estimable man and most indulgent husband, only necessary to mention Asparagus and it appeared or to hint at any little delicate thing to drink and it came like magic in a pint bottle; it was not ecstasy but it was comfort.
-Charles Dickens
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It's my old girl that advises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained.
-Charles Dickens
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Memory
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After musing for some minutes, the old gentleman walked, with the same meditative face, into a back anteroom opening from the yard; and there, retiring into a corner, called up before his mind's eye a vast amphitheatre of faces over which a dusky curtain had hung for many years.
-Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist
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Lord, keep my memory green.
-Charles Dickens
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Mental Illness
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Oh the nerves, the nerves; the mysteries of this machine called man! Oh the little that unhinges it, poor creatures that we are!
-Charles Dickens
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Military, the
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We know, Mr. Weller -- we, who are men of the world -- that a good uniform must work its way with the women, sooner or later.
-Charles Dickens
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Money
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Dollars! All their cares, hopes, joys, affections, virtues, and associations seemed to be melted down into dollars. Whatever the chance contributions that fell into the slow cauldron of their talk, they made the gruel thick and slab with dollars. Men were weighed by their dollars, measures were gauged by their dollars; life was auctioned, appraised, put up, and knocked down for its dollars. The next respectable thing to dollars was any venture having their attainment for its end. The more of that worthless ballast, honor and fair-dealing, which any man cast overboard from the ship of his Good Nature and Good Intent, the more ample stowage-room he had for dollars. Make commerce one huge lie and mighty theft. Deface the banner of the nation for an idle rag; pollute it star by star; and cut out stripe by stripe as from the arm of a degraded soldier. Do anything for dollars! What is a flag to them!
-Charles Dickens
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Morals
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The pure, the bright,
The beautiful that stirred our hearts in youth,
The impulses to wordless prayer,
The streams of love and truth,
The longing after something lost,
The spirit's yearning cry,
The striving after better hopes;
These things can never die.
The timid hand stretched forth to aid a brother in his need,
A kindly word in grief's dark hour that proves a friend indeed;
The plea for mercy softly breathed,
When justice threatens high,
The sorrow of a contrite heart;
These things shall never die, shall never die.
Let nothing pass,
For every hand must find some work to do,
Lose not a chance to waken love.
Be firm and just and true,
So shall a light that cannot fade beam on thee from on high,
And angel voices say to thee;
These things can never die.
-Charles Dickens
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News
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They are so filthy and bestial that no honest man would admit one into his house for a water-closet doormat.
-Charles Dickens
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Perception
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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
-Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
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Philosophy
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Philosophers are only men in armor after all.
-Charles Dickens
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Politics
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The bright old day now dawns again; the cry runs through the land, in England there shall be dear bread -- in Ireland, sword and brand; and poverty, and ignorance, shall swell the rich and grand, so rally round the rulers with the gentle iron hand, of the fine old English Tory days; hail to the coming time!
-Charles Dickens
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Portraits
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There are only two styles of portrait painting; the serious and the smirk.
-Charles Dickens
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Poverty
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To be shelterless and alone in the open country, hearing the wind moan and watching for day through the whole long weary night; to listen to the falling rain, and crouch for warmth beneath the lee of some old barn or rick, or in the hollow of a tree; are dismal things -- but not so dismal as the wandering up and down where shelter is, and beds and sleepers are by thousands; a houseless rejected creature.
-Charles Dickens
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Praise
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It was a good thing to have a couple of thousand people all rigid and frozen together, in the palm of one's hand.
-Charles Dickens
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Public
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A man in public life expects to be sneered at -- it is the fault of his elevated situation, and not of himself.
-Charles Dickens
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Reading
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There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.
-Charles Dickens
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Reflection
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A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those dark, clustered houses encloses it
-Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, Ch. 9, 1859
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Regret & Remorse
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Regrets are the natural property of gray hairs.
-Charles Dickens
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Books by and about Charles Dickens