Quotessence
Home / Authors / Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens Quotes

Writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenIfsHeartWorldCharacterLoveSaidWords Of WisdomInteresting CharactersFunny

Famous Charles Dickens Quotes

“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 anatomised 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.”

PeopleIfsMenGivingBelieveWould BeLiteratureNamesI BelieveBornPartyAirStrangeTomorrowHatredEarsGive MeBreathePursuitFollySatireSarcasmBelieve In MeBrutalSlanderHuntedSatirist
Book:Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit
Create image

“Pale and pinched-up faces hovered about the windows where was tempting food; hungry eyes wandered over the profusion guarded by one thin sheet of brittle glass--an iron wall to them; half-naked shivering figures stopped to gaze at Chinese shawls and golden stuffs of India.”

EyeFacesStuffHalfFiguresWallWindowIndiaGlassesHungryNakedGoldenChineseIronPaleSheetsGuardedTemptingHungry Eyes
Book:The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby
Create image

“Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. This scarecrow of a suit, has, in course of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what it means. The parties to it understand it least; but it has been observed that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five minutes, without coming to total disagreement as to all the premises.”

KnowsMenMeanHas BeensTwoLawCoursesPartyFiveAliveMinutesComplicatedLawyerSuitsFive MinutesPremisesDisagreementDronesScarecrow
Author:Charles Dickens
Create image

“I am in the theatrical profession myself, my wife is in the theatrical profession, my children are in the theatrical profession.I had a dog that lived and died in it from a puppy; and my chaise-pony goes on, in Timour the Tartar.”

ChildrenActorsActingWifeDogGoes OnDiedMy WifeProfessionTheatreMy ChildrenPuppyTheatricalPonies
Book:Charles Dickens's works. Charles Dickens ed. [18 vols. of a 21 vol. set. Wanting A child's history of England; Christmas stories; The mystery of Edwin Drood].
Create image

“Along the Paris streets, the death-carts rumble, hollow and harsh. Six tumbrils carry the day's wine to La Guillotine.”

StreetsSixWineParisHarshHollowCartsRumbleGuillotineTale Of Two Cities
Book:Charles Dickens's works. Charles Dickens ed. [18 vols. of a 21 vol. set. Wanting A child's history of England; Christmas stories; The mystery of Edwin Drood].
Create image

“I don't suppose there's a man going, as possesses the fondness for youth that I do. There's youth to the amount of eight hundredpound a-year, at Dotheboys Hall at this present time. I'd take sixteen hundred pound worth, if I could get 'em, and be as fond of every individual twenty pound among 'em as nothing should equal it!”

IfsMenShouldYearsIndividualYouthAmountEqualHundredTwentiesEightIf I CouldEmsPoundsHallsSchoolingSixteenPresent TimeFondnessTuition
Author:Charles Dickens
Create image

“It is the fate of most men who mingle with the world, and attain even the prime of life, to make many real friends, and lose them in the course of nature. It is the fate of all authors or chroniclers to create imaginary friends, and lose them in the course of art. Nor is this the full extent of their misfortunes; for they are required to furnish an account of them besides.”

MenWorldArtRealCoursesLosesFateAccountsPrimeMisfortunesImaginaryReal FriendsImaginary FriendPrime Of Life
Book:The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, Volume 2 (of 2) (Illustrations)
Create image

“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.”

IfsMenCountryBodyAmericaNightIndividualHoursReadyCitizensCrisisGlobesProsperousOathEvangelists
Book:The Complete Novels of Charles Dickens: 20 Illustrated Classics in One Volume: Oliver Twist, The Pickwick Papers, Hard Times, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop, Barnaby Rudge, Martin Chuzzlewit, Dombey and Son, David Copperfield…
Create image

“How many families, whose members have been dispersed and scattered far and wide, in the restless struggles of life, are then reunited, and meet once again in that happy state of companionship and mutual goodwill, which is a source of such pure and unalloyed delight; and one so incompatible with the cares and sorrows of the world, that the religious belief of the most civilized nations, and the rude traditions of the roughest savages, alike number it among the first joys of a future condition of existence, provided for the blessed and happy!”

WorldFirstsHas BeensStatesCareJoyBeliefNationsReligiousNumbersExistenceStruggleConditionsSourceSorrowPureMembersTraditionBlessedDelightWideMutualCivilizedSavagesRudeCompanionshipRestlessGoodwillReligious BeliefLife StruggleReunitedCivilized Nations
Book:The Pickwick Papers: The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club
Create image

“As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like, were unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father's, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription, "Also Georgiana Wife of the Above", I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly.”

MenFirstsLongIdeasCharacterMotherTurnsFatherBlackDarkSawsWifeHairShapesLettersPhotographConclusionOddFancySquaresTombstoneInscriptionsStoutBlack Hair
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Charles Dickens (Illustrated)
Create image

“It was a foggy day in London, and the fog was heavy and dark. Animate London, with smarting eyes and irritated lungs, was blinking, wheezing, and choking; inanimate London was a sooty spectre, divided in purpose between being visible and invisible, and so being wholly neither.”

EyePurposeDarkHeavyLondonInvisibleVisibleDividedFogLungsChokeIrritatedSpectreWheezing
Book:Charles Dickens's works. Charles Dickens ed. [18 vols. of a 21 vol. set. Wanting A child's history of England; Christmas stories; The mystery of Edwin Drood].
Create image

“There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast. Some men, like bats or owls, have better eyes for the darkness than for the light. We, who have no such optical powers, are better pleased to take our last parting look at the visionary companions of many solitary hours, when the brief sunshine of the world is blazing full upon them.”

MenWorldLooksLightEyeEarthLastsHoursDarkDarknessShadowStrongerSunshineCompanionContrastSolitaryBatsPartingVisionariesOwlBlazing
Book:The posthumous papers of the Pickwick Club
Create image