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Charles Dickens Quotes

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.

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
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Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.
From Nicholas Nickleby
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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
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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.
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I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me.
From A Tale of Two Cities
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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
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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
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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
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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
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There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.
From A Christmas Carol
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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
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Things that are changed or gone will come back as they used to be.
From Nicholas Nickleby
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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
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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
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No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.
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He went to the church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and for, and patted the children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of homes, and up to the windows, and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed of any walk, that anything, could give him so much happiness. (p. 119)
From A Christmas Carol
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It is a world of disappointment: often to the hopes we most cherish, and hopes that do our nature the greatest honour.
From Oliver Twist
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The boy was lying, fast asleep, on a rude bed upon the floor; so pale with anxiety, and sadness, and the closeness of his prison, that he looked like death; not death as it shews in shroud and coffin, but in the guise it wears when life has just departed; when a young and gentle spirit has, but an instant, fled to Heaven: and the gross air of the world has not had time to breathe upon the changing dust it hallowed.
From Oliver Twist
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Your haughty religious people would have held their heads up to see me as I am tonight, and preached of flames and vengeance,' cried the girl. 'Oh, dear lady, why ar'n't those who claim to be God's own folks as gentle and as kind to us poor wretches as you, who, having youth, and beauty, and all that they have lost, might be a little proud instead of so much humbler?
From Oliver Twist
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Before I go," he said, and paused -- "I may kiss her?"

It was remembered afterwards that when he bent down and touched her face with his lips, he murmured some words. The child, who was nearest to him, told them afterwards, and told her grandchildren when she was a handsome old lady, that she heard him say, "A life you love.
From A Tale of Two Cities
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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
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Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.
From Nicholas Nickleby
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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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me.
From A Tale of Two Cities
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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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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
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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
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There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.
From A Christmas Carol
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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
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Things that are changed or gone will come back as they used to be.
From Nicholas Nickleby
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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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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
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No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
He went to the church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and for, and patted the children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of homes, and up to the windows, and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed of any walk, that anything, could give him so much happiness. (p. 119)
From A Christmas Carol
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It is a world of disappointment: often to the hopes we most cherish, and hopes that do our nature the greatest honour.
From Oliver Twist
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The boy was lying, fast asleep, on a rude bed upon the floor; so pale with anxiety, and sadness, and the closeness of his prison, that he looked like death; not death as it shews in shroud and coffin, but in the guise it wears when life has just departed; when a young and gentle spirit has, but an instant, fled to Heaven: and the gross air of the world has not had time to breathe upon the changing dust it hallowed.
From Oliver Twist
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Your haughty religious people would have held their heads up to see me as I am tonight, and preached of flames and vengeance,' cried the girl. 'Oh, dear lady, why ar'n't those who claim to be God's own folks as gentle and as kind to us poor wretches as you, who, having youth, and beauty, and all that they have lost, might be a little proud instead of so much humbler?
From Oliver Twist
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Before I go," he said, and paused -- "I may kiss her?"

It was remembered afterwards that when he bent down and touched her face with his lips, he murmured some words. The child, who was nearest to him, told them afterwards, and told her grandchildren when she was a handsome old lady, that she heard him say, "A life you love.
From A Tale of Two Cities
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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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.
From Nicholas Nickleby
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me.
From A Tale of Two Cities
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.
From A Christmas Carol
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Things that are changed or gone will come back as they used to be.
From Nicholas Nickleby
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
He went to the church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and for, and patted the children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of homes, and up to the windows, and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed of any walk, that anything, could give him so much happiness. (p. 119)
From A Christmas Carol
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It is a world of disappointment: often to the hopes we most cherish, and hopes that do our nature the greatest honour.
From Oliver Twist
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The boy was lying, fast asleep, on a rude bed upon the floor; so pale with anxiety, and sadness, and the closeness of his prison, that he looked like death; not death as it shews in shroud and coffin, but in the guise it wears when life has just departed; when a young and gentle spirit has, but an instant, fled to Heaven: and the gross air of the world has not had time to breathe upon the changing dust it hallowed.
From Oliver Twist
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Your haughty religious people would have held their heads up to see me as I am tonight, and preached of flames and vengeance,' cried the girl. 'Oh, dear lady, why ar'n't those who claim to be God's own folks as gentle and as kind to us poor wretches as you, who, having youth, and beauty, and all that they have lost, might be a little proud instead of so much humbler?
From Oliver Twist
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Before I go," he said, and paused -- "I may kiss her?"

It was remembered afterwards that when he bent down and touched her face with his lips, he murmured some words. The child, who was nearest to him, told them afterwards, and told her grandchildren when she was a handsome old lady, that she heard him say, "A life you love.
From A Tale of Two Cities
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