Charles dickens quotes

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

There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.

Do the wise thing and the kind thing too, and make the best of us and not the worst.

When a man bleeds inwardly, it is a dangerous thing for himself; but when he laughs inwardly, it bodes no good to other people.

I will live in the past, the present, and the future. The spirits of all three shall strive within me.

There is no substitute for thoroughgoing, ardent, and sincere earnestness.

Time and tide will wait for no man, saith the adage. But all men have to wait for time and tide.

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.

Credit is a system whereby a person who can not pay gets another person who can not pay to guarantee that he can pay.

Reflect upon your present blessings

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

An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself.

Remembrance, like a candle, burns brightest at Christmastime.

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.

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

One should never be ashamed to cry. Tears are rain on the dust of earth.

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

The two commonest mistakes in judgement ... are, the confounding of shyness with arrogance - a very common mistake indeed - and the not understanding that an obstinate nature exists in a perpetual struggle with itself.

The worst of all listeners is the man who does nothing but listen.

True love believes everything, and bears everything, and trusts everything.

I wear the chain I forged in life....I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.

Ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies.

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

Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before--more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.

Most men unconsciously judge the world from themselves, and it will be very generally found that those who sneer habitually at human nature, and affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant samples.

The habit of paying compliments kept a man's tongue oiled without any expense.

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!

Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own.

Ride on! Ride on over all obstacles and win the race.

In every life, no matter how full or empty ones purse, there is tragedy. It is the one promise life always fulfills. Thus, happiness is a gift, and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes, and to add to other peoples store of it.

There is a wisdom of the head, and a wisdom of the heart.

Family not only need to consist of merely those whom we share blood, but also for those whom we'd give blood.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

There are strings in the human heart that had better not be vibrated.

We can refute assertions, but who can refute silence?

Have you ever had the sensation of looking at someone for the first time and ever so quickly the past and future seem to fuse ? Does that not mean something ? That we felt so much, so deeply, before even speaking?

Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures, hover about a lighted candle. Can the candle help it?

There are some upon this earth of yours,' returned the Spirit, 'who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name; who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.

The broken heart. You think you will die, but you just keep living, day after day after terrible day.

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.

Love is in all things a most wonderful teacher.

Remember, to the last, that while there is life there is hope.

I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.

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

Train up a fig tree in the way it should go, and when you are old sit under the shade of it.

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

When you drink of the water, don't forget the spring from which it flows.

Vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!

Yes. He is quite a good fellow - nobody's enemy but his own.

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

This is a world of action, and not moping and droning in.

Grief never mended no broken bones.

The shadows of our own desires stand between us and our better angels, and thus their brightness is eclipsed.

The forces that affect our lives, the influences that mold and shape us, are often like whispers in a different room, teasingly indistinct, apprehended only with difficulty.

We must scrunch or be scrunched.

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

The American woman is a monstrosity.

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

In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice.

A loving heart is the truest wisdom.

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

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.

What greater gift than the love of a cat.

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.

The sun himself is weak when he first rises, and gathers strength and courage as the day gets on.

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.

It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.

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

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.

For 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.

My advice is to never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time.

The men who learn endurance, are they who call the whole world, brother.

Cheerfulness and contentment are great beautifiers, and are famous preservers of good looks.

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!

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

I have been, as the phrase is, liberally educated, and am fit for nothing.

Try to do unto others as you would have them do to you, and do not be discouraged if they fail sometimes. It is much better that they should fail than you should.

Least said, soonest mended

Great men are seldom over-scrupulous in the arrangement of their attire.

Poetry makes life what lights and music do the stage.

There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth.

There is something in sickness that breaks down the pride of manhood.

We forge the chains we wear in life.

We need never be ashamed of our tears.

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

For not an orphan in the wide world can be so deserted as the child who is an outcast from a living parent's love.

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.

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

A good thing can't be cruel.

You have been the last dream of my soul.

Keep up appearances whatever you do.

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

Consider nothing impossible, then treat possiblities as probabilities.

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

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

A very little key will open a very heavy door.

It is not easy to walk alone in the country without musing upon something.

Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else.

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

Nothing of what is nobly done is ever lost.

We never tire of the friendships we form with books.

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

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.

Man cannot really improve himself without improving others.

Nothing that we do, is done in vain. I believe, with all my soul, that we shall see triumph.

The dreams of childhood - it's airy fables, its graceful, beautiful, humane, impossible adornments of the world beyond; so good to be believed in once, so good to be remembered when outgrown.

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

Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.

Spring is the time of year when it is summer in the sun and winter in the shade.

Charity begins at home, and justice begins next door.

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

Once a gentleman, and always a gentleman.

A contented spirit is the sweetness of existence.

Life is made of ever so many partings welded together.

Some people are nobody's enemies but their own

To a young heart everything is fun.

The ocean asks for nothing but those who stand by her shores gradually attune themselves to her rhythm.

The year end brings no greater pleasure then the opportunity to express to you season's greetings and good wishes. May your holidays and new year be filled with joy.

The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.

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.

Regrets are the natural property of grey hairs.