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Charles Dickens

Writer

Charles Dickens, one of the greatest novelists of the Victorian era, captured the struggles and triumphs of humanity with unforgettable characters and vivid storytelling. His quotes reflect his keen social insight, compassion, and deep understanding of human nature. Together, they offer timeless wisdom on life, morality, and the resilience of the human spirit.

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NOT YET RATED▼
So, 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.
From Great Expectations
Topic: Success
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.
From Nicholas Nickleby
Topic: Happiness
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
Be natural my children. For the writer that is natural has fulfilled all the rules of art."

(Last words, according to Dickens's obituary in The Times.)
From Five Novels: Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations
Topic: Inspirational
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me.
From A Tale of Two Cities
Topic: Life, Philosophical
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
Never close your lips to those whom you have already opened your heart.
Topic: Love
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
What greater gift than the love of a cat.
Topic: Love
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
The unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I love her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection.
From Great Expectations
Topic: Love
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
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.
Topic: Love, Relationships
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
Mrs Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her clenliness more umcomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to godliness, and some people do the same by their religion.
From Great Expectations
Topic: Religion
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
Mr Lorry asks the witness questions:

Ever been kicked?
Might have been.
Frequently? No. Ever kicked down stairs?
Decidedly not; once received a kick at the top of a staircase, and fell down stairs of his own accord.
From A Tale of Two Cities
Topic: Funny
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.
From Great Expectations
Topic: Life
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
And a beautiful world we live in, when it is possible, and when many other such things are possible, and not only possible, but done-- done, see you!-- under that sky there, every day.
From A Tale of Two Cities
Topic: Inspirational
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.
From A Christmas Carol
Topic: Funny
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.
From Great Expectations
Topic: Love
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul.
From A Tale of Two Cities
Topic: Love
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
Mrs. Joe war eine sehr reinliche Hausfrau, doch sie verstand sich ausnehmend gut darauf, ihre Reinlichkeit bequemer und unerträglicher zu machen, als jeder Schmutz gewesen wäre. Die Reinlichkeit ist der Gottesfurcht verwandt, und manche verfahren mit ihrer Religion ganz genauso.
From Great Expectations
Topic: Religion
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
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.
From Great Expectations
Topic: Education
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
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.
From Hard Times
Topic: Education
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
Things that are changed or gone will come back as they used to be.
From Nicholas Nickleby
Topic: Hope
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
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.
From Great Expectations
Topic: Life
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
The two stand in the fast-thinning throng of victims, but they speak as if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, heart to heart, these two children of the Universal Mother, else so wide apart and differing, have come together on the dark highway, to repair home together and to rest in her bosom.
From A Tale of Two Cities
Topic: Death
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
I never heard that it had been anybody’s business to find out what his natural bent was, or where his failings lay, or to adapt any kind of knowledge to him. He had been adapted to the verses and had learnt the art of making them to such perfection. I did doubt whether Richard would not have profited by some one studying him a little, instead of his studying them quite so much.
From Bleak House
Topic: Education
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
‎And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire.
From A Tale of Two Cities
Topic: Love
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.
Topic: Other
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
So, 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.
From Great Expectations
Topic: Success
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.
From Nicholas Nickleby
Topic: Happiness
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
Be natural my children. For the writer that is natural has fulfilled all the rules of art."

(Last words, according to Dickens's obituary in The Times.)
From Five Novels: Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations
Topic: Inspirational
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me.
From A Tale of Two Cities
Topic: Life, Philosophical
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
Never close your lips to those whom you have already opened your heart.
Topic: Love
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
What greater gift than the love of a cat.
Topic: Love
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
The unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I love her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection.
From Great Expectations
Topic: Love
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
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.
Topic: Love, Relationships
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
Mrs Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her clenliness more umcomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to godliness, and some people do the same by their religion.
From Great Expectations
Topic: Religion
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
Mr Lorry asks the witness questions:

Ever been kicked?
Might have been.
Frequently? No. Ever kicked down stairs?
Decidedly not; once received a kick at the top of a staircase, and fell down stairs of his own accord.
From A Tale of Two Cities
Topic: Funny
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.
From Great Expectations
Topic: Life
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
And a beautiful world we live in, when it is possible, and when many other such things are possible, and not only possible, but done-- done, see you!-- under that sky there, every day.
From A Tale of Two Cities
Topic: Inspirational
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.
From A Christmas Carol
Topic: Funny
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.
From Great Expectations
Topic: Love
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul.
From A Tale of Two Cities
Topic: Love
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
Mrs. Joe war eine sehr reinliche Hausfrau, doch sie verstand sich ausnehmend gut darauf, ihre Reinlichkeit bequemer und unerträglicher zu machen, als jeder Schmutz gewesen wäre. Die Reinlichkeit ist der Gottesfurcht verwandt, und manche verfahren mit ihrer Religion ganz genauso.
From Great Expectations
Topic: Religion
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
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.
From Great Expectations
Topic: Education
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
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.
From Hard Times
Topic: Education
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
Things that are changed or gone will come back as they used to be.
From Nicholas Nickleby
Topic: Hope
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
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.
From Great Expectations
Topic: Life
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
The two stand in the fast-thinning throng of victims, but they speak as if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, heart to heart, these two children of the Universal Mother, else so wide apart and differing, have come together on the dark highway, to repair home together and to rest in her bosom.
From A Tale of Two Cities
Topic: Death
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
I never heard that it had been anybody’s business to find out what his natural bent was, or where his failings lay, or to adapt any kind of knowledge to him. He had been adapted to the verses and had learnt the art of making them to such perfection. I did doubt whether Richard would not have profited by some one studying him a little, instead of his studying them quite so much.
From Bleak House
Topic: Education
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
‎And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire.
From A Tale of Two Cities
Topic: Love
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.
Topic: Other
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
So, 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.
From Great Expectations
Topic: Success
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.
From Nicholas Nickleby
Topic: Happiness
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
Be natural my children. For the writer that is natural has fulfilled all the rules of art."

(Last words, according to Dickens's obituary in The Times.)
From Five Novels: Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations
Topic: Inspirational
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me.
From A Tale of Two Cities
Topic: Life, Philosophical
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
Never close your lips to those whom you have already opened your heart.
Topic: Love
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
What greater gift than the love of a cat.
Topic: Love
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
The unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I love her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection.
From Great Expectations
Topic: Love
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
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.
Topic: Love, Relationships
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
Mrs Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her clenliness more umcomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to godliness, and some people do the same by their religion.
From Great Expectations
Topic: Religion
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
Mr Lorry asks the witness questions:

Ever been kicked?
Might have been.
Frequently? No. Ever kicked down stairs?
Decidedly not; once received a kick at the top of a staircase, and fell down stairs of his own accord.
From A Tale of Two Cities
Topic: Funny
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.
From Great Expectations
Topic: Life
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
And a beautiful world we live in, when it is possible, and when many other such things are possible, and not only possible, but done-- done, see you!-- under that sky there, every day.
From A Tale of Two Cities
Topic: Inspirational
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.
From A Christmas Carol
Topic: Funny
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.
From Great Expectations
Topic: Love
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul.
From A Tale of Two Cities
Topic: Love
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
Mrs. Joe war eine sehr reinliche Hausfrau, doch sie verstand sich ausnehmend gut darauf, ihre Reinlichkeit bequemer und unerträglicher zu machen, als jeder Schmutz gewesen wäre. Die Reinlichkeit ist der Gottesfurcht verwandt, und manche verfahren mit ihrer Religion ganz genauso.
From Great Expectations
Topic: Religion
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
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.
From Great Expectations
Topic: Education
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
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.
From Hard Times
Topic: Education
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
Things that are changed or gone will come back as they used to be.
From Nicholas Nickleby
Topic: Hope
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
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.
From Great Expectations
Topic: Life
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
The two stand in the fast-thinning throng of victims, but they speak as if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, heart to heart, these two children of the Universal Mother, else so wide apart and differing, have come together on the dark highway, to repair home together and to rest in her bosom.
From A Tale of Two Cities
Topic: Death
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
I never heard that it had been anybody’s business to find out what his natural bent was, or where his failings lay, or to adapt any kind of knowledge to him. He had been adapted to the verses and had learnt the art of making them to such perfection. I did doubt whether Richard would not have profited by some one studying him a little, instead of his studying them quite so much.
From Bleak House
Topic: Education
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
‎And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire.
From A Tale of Two Cities
Topic: Love
Charles Dickens
NOT YET RATED▼
No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.
Topic: Other
Charles Dickens
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