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Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens Quotes

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Famous Charles Dickens Quotes

“Esse dia foi memorável para mim, pois causou grandes mudanças no meu destino. Mas é assim com todo mundo. Subtraia um determinado dia de sua vida e veja que, sem ele, sua vida teria tomado um rumo diferente. Faça uma pausa por um instante, leitor, e pense na comprida corrente de ferro ou de ouro, de espinhos ou flores, que jamais se lhe estaria ligada, se um certo dia memorável não tivesse formado o primeiro elo dessa corrente.”

VidaDiaRumoCorrente
Book:Great Expectations
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“Esquecer a senhora? É parte da minha vida, parte de mim mesmo. Estava em cada verso que li, desde que aqui vim pela primeira vez, menino rude e comum, que a senhora, já naquele tempo, magoava tanto. Desde aquele tempo, esteve em todas as minhas esperanças... no rio, nas velas dos navios, no pântano, nos bosques, no mar, nas ruas. A senhora foi a personificação de todas as fantasias bonitas do meu espírito. As pedras que formam os edifícios mais fortes de Londres não são mais reais ou mais impossíveis de ser deslocadas pelas suas mãos, do que sua presença, sua influência, o foram para mim, sempre, aqui e em toda parte. Estella, até a hora em que eu morrer, a senhora vai ser parte do meu caráter, parte do pouco que há de bom em mim, e do que há de mal. Mas, ao nos separarmos, eu sempre irei associá-la com o bem, e é assim, com toda a lealdade, que pensarei na senhora, sempre, pois foi para mim um alento, mais do que um desalento, e agora deixe que eu sinta toda a minha dor. Que Deus a abençoe!”

Estella HavishamPip Gargery
Book:Great Expectations
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“Harhailin Bethlehemin sairaalan luo osittain siksi, että se osui tielleni matkallani kohti Westminsteriä, toisaalta siksi, että mieleeni juolahti öinen ajatus, jota voisin pohtia parhaiten sen muureja ja kupolia katsellessani. Ajatus oli seuraava: Eivätkö hullut ja terveet ole tasa-arvoisia öisin, kun terveet makaavat uneksimassa? Eivätkö kaikki tämän sairaalan muurien ulkopuolella uneksivat ole elämänsä jokaisena yönä enemmän tai vähemmän samanlaisia kuin nekin, jotka ovat joutuneet muurien sisälle? Emmekö mekin seurustele öisin kuningattarien, keisarien, keisarinnojen ja kaikenlaisen ylhäisön kanssa, kuten hullutkin joka päivä? Emmekö mekin sekoita öisin tapahtumia, henkilöitä, aikoja ja paikkoja toisiinsa kuten hekin joka päivä?”

IhmisetSairausMielen SairaudetKävelyretketLontooTerveys
Book:Kävelyretkiä Lontoon kaduilla
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“Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since – on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made, are not more real, or more impossible to displace with your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation I associate you only with the good, and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you!”

Love
Book:Great Expectations
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“I believed, from the solitary and thoughtful way in which my mother murmured her song, that she was alone. And I went softly into the room. She was sitting by the fire, suckling an infant, whose tiny hand she held against her neck. Her eyes were looking down upon its face, and she sat singing to it. I was so far right, that she had no other companion. I spoke to her, and she started, and cried out. But seeing me, she called me her dear Davy, her own boy! and coming half across the room to meet me, kneeled down upon the ground and kissed me, and laid my head down on her bosom near the little creature that was nestling there, and put its hand up to my lips. I wish I had died. I wish I had died then, with that feeling in my Heart! I should have been more fit for Heaven than I ever have been since.”

Heaven
Book:David Copperfield
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“Since I knew you, I have been troubled by a remorse that I thought would never reproach me again, and have heard whispers from old voices impelling me upward, that I thought were silent for ever. I have had unformed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew, shaking off sloth and sensuality, and fighting out the abandoned fight. A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it.”

Dreams
Book:a tale of two cities
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“Utilitarian economists, skeletons of schoolmasters, Commissioners of Fact, genteel and used-up infidels, gabblers of many little dog’s-eared creeds, the poor you will have always with you. Cultivate in them, while there is yet time, the utmost graces of the fancies and affections, to adorn their lives so much in need of ornament; or, in the day of your triumph, when romance is utterly driven out of their souls, and they and a bare existence stand face to face, Reality will take a wolfish turn, and make an end of you.”

RealityRomanceEmotionFeelingUtilitarianThe Poor
Book:Hard Times
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“As no man of large experience of humanity, however quietly carried it may be, can fail to be invested with an interest peculiar to the possession of such knowledge, Physician was an attractive man. Even the daintier gentlemen and ladies who had no idea of his secret, and who would have been startled out of more wits than they had, by the monstrous impropriety of his proposing to them 'Come and see what I see!' confessed his attraction. Where he was, something real was. And half a grain of reality, like the smallest portion of some other scarce natural productions, will flavour an enormous quantity of diluent.”

RealityTruthExperiencePerception Of RealityPerception Of Life
Book:LITTLE DORRIT
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“There is a kind of sleep that steals upon us sometimes, which, while it holds the body prisoner, does not free the mind from a sense of things about it, and enable it to ramble at its pleasure. So far as an overpowering heaviness, a prostration of strength, and an utter inability to control our thoughts or power of motion, can be called sleep, this is it; and yet we have a consciousness of all that is going on about us; and if we dream at such a time, words which are really spoken, or sounds which really exist at the moment, accommodate themselves with surprising readiness to our visions, until reality and imagination become so strangely blended that it is afterwards almost a matter of impossibilty to separate the two. Nor is this, the most striking phenomenon, incidental to such a state. It is an undoubted fact, that although our senses of touch and sight be for the time dead, yet our sleeping thoughts, and the visionary scenes that pass before us, will be influenced, and materially influenced, by the mere silent presence of some external object: which may not have been near us when we closed our eyes: and of whose vicinity we have had no waking consciousness.”

SleepConsciousness
Book:Oliver Twist
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“We are thankful to come here for rest, sir," said Jenny. "You see, you don't know what the rest of this place is to us; does he, Lizzie? It's the quiet, and the air." "The quiet!" repeated Fledgeby, with a contemptuous turn of his head towards the City's roar. "And the air!" with a "Poof!" at the smoke. "Ah!" said Jenny. "But it's so high. And you see the clouds rushing on above the narrow streets, not minding them, and you see the golden arrows pointing at the mountains in the sky from which the wind comes, and you feel as if you were dead." The little creature looked above her, holding up her slight transparent hand. "How do you feel when you are dead?" asked Fledgeby, much perplexed. "Oh, so tranquil!" cried the little creature, smiling. "Oh, so peaceful and so thankful! And you hear the people who are alive, crying, and working, and calling to one another down in the close dark streets, and you seem to pity them so! And such a chain has fallen from you, and such a strange good sorrowful happiness comes upon you!" Her eyes fell on the old man, who, with his hands folded, quietly looked on. "Why it was only just now," said the little creature, pointing at him, "that I fancied I saw him come out of his grave! He toiled out at that low door so bent and worn, and then he took his breath and stood upright, and looked all round him at the sky, and the wind blew upon him, and his life down in the dark was over!—Till he was called back to life," she added, looking round at Fledgeby with that lower look of sharpness. "Why did you call him back?" "He was long enough coming, anyhow," grumbled Fledgeby. "But you are not dead, you know," said Jenny Wren. "Get down to life!" Mr Fledgeby seemed to think it rather a good suggestion, and with a nod turned round. As Riah followed to attend him down the stairs, the little creature called out to the Jew in a silvery tone, "Don't be long gone. Come back, and be dead!" And still as they went down they heard the little sweet voice, more and more faintly, half calling and half singing, "Come back and be dead, Come back and be dead!”

DeathPeaceRest
Book:Our Mutual Friend
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“Dear Joe, he is always right.” “Well, old chap,” said Joe, “then abide by your words. If he's always right (which in general he's more likely wrong), he's right when he says this:—Supposing ever you kep any little matter to yourself, when you was a little child, you kep it mostly because you know'd as J. Gargery's power to part you and Tickler in sunders, were not fully equal to his inclinations. Theerfore, think no more of it as betwixt two sech, and do not let us pass remarks upon onnecessary subjects. Biddy giv' herself a deal o' trouble with me afore I left (for I am almost awful dull), as I should view it in this light, and, viewing it in this light, as I should ser put it. Both of which,” said Joe, quite charmed with his logical arrangement, “being done, now this to you a true friend, say. Namely. You mustn't go a overdoing on it, but you must have your supper and your wine-and-water, and you must be put betwixt the sheets.” The delicacy with which Joe dismissed this theme, and the sweet tact and kindness with which Biddy—who with her woman's wit had found me out so soon—had prepared him for it, made a deep impression on my mind.”

FatherFriendshipKindness
Book:Great Expectations
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“It was all Mrs. Bumble. She would do it," urged Mr. Bumble; first looking round, to ascertain that his partner had left the room. That is no excuse," returned Mr. Brownlow. "You were present on the occasion of the destruction of these trinkets, and, indeed, are the more guilty of the two, in the eye of the law; for the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction." If the law supposes that," said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, "the law is a ass — a idiot. If that's the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience — by experience.”

FunnyLawResponsibilityMarriageWomanDominanceMatrimonyWivesHusbands
Book:Oliver Twist
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“If an enthusiastic, ardent, and ambitous man marry a wife on whose name there is a stain, which, though it originate in no fault of hers, may be visited by cold and sordid people upon her, and upon his children also: and, in exact proportion to his success in the world, be cast in his teeth, and made the subject of sneers against him: he may-no matter how generous and good his nature- one day repent of the connection he formed in early life; and she may have the pain and torture of knowing that he does so.”

MarriageShame
Book:Oliver Twist
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“Mr. Godfrey Nickleby: a worthy gentleman, who, taking it into his head rather late in life that he must get married, and not being young enough or rich enough to aspire to the hand of a lady of fortune, had wedded an old flame out of mere attachment, who in her turn had taken him for the same reason. Thus two people who cannot afford to play cards for money, sometimes sit down to a quiet game for love.”

LoveMarriage
Book:Nicholas Nickleby
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“There once lived, in a sequestered part of the county of Devonshire, one Mr. Godfrey Nickleby: a worthy gentleman, who, taking it in his head rather late in life that he must get married, and not being young enough or rich enough to aspire to the hand of a lady of fortune, had wedded an old flame out of mere attachment, who in her turn had taken him for the same reason. Thus two people who cannot afford to play cards for money, sometimes sit down to a quiet game for love.”

LoveMarriage
Book:Nicholas Nickleby
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“And how hard, father, to grow old, and die, and think we might have cheered and helped each other! How hard in all our lives to love each other; and to grieve, apart, to see each other working, changing, growing old and grey. Even if I got the better of it, and forgot him(which I never could), oh father dear, how hard to have a heart so full as mine is now, and live to have it slowly drained out every drop, without the recollection of one happy moment of a woman's life, to stay behind and comfort me, and make me better.”

LovePoorMarriageYoung Love
Author:Charles Dickens
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“My daughter, there are times of moral danger when the hardest virtuous resolution to form is flight, and when the most heroic bravery is flight.”

FormMoralDangerWords Of WisdomDaughterBraveryHardestFlightMy DaughterResolutionHeroicVirtuous
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].
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“A mob is usually a creature of very mysterious existence, particularly in a large city. Where it comes from, or whither it goes, few men can tell. Assembling and dispersing with equal suddenness, it is as difficult to follow to its various sources as the sea itself; nor does the parallel stop here, for the ocean is not more fickle and uncertain, more terrible when roused, more unreasonable or more cruel.”

MenDoeDifficultCitiesExistenceSeaSourceTerribleCreaturesEqualOceanVariousMysteriousUncertainParallelsUnreasonableFickleAssemblingLarge 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].
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“Night, like a giant, fills the church, from pavement to roof, and holds dominion through the silent hours. Pale dawn again comes peeping through the windows: and, giving place to day, sees night withdraw into the vaults, and follows it, and drives it out, and hides among the dead.”

GivingNightHoursChurchWindowSilentDawnGiantsPaleRoofDominionSpookyPavementVaultsPeeping
Book:Works of Charles Dickens: Dombey and son
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