Charles Dickens

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

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

Vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!

Dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine.

Regrets are the natural property of grey hairs.

Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one, stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to in the strongest conjuration.

Charity begins at home and justice begins next door.

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

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

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

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

It's my old girl that advises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained.

It is a far far better thing that I do than I have ever done, it is a far far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.

The civility which money will purchase is rarely extended to those who have none.

The one great principle of English law is to make business for itself.

There are not a few among the disciples of charity who require in their vocation scarcely less excitement than the votaries of pleasure in theirs.

We are so very 'umble.

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

Subdue your appetites my dears and you've conquered human nature.

'Tis love that makes the world go round my baby.

Bring in the bottled lightning a clean tumbler and a corkscrew.

Cows are my passion. What I have ever sighed for has been to retreat to a Swiss farm and live entirely surrounded by cows - and china.

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

We forge the chains we wear in life.

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

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!

Life is made of ever so many partings welded together.

Whatever I have tried to do in life I have tried with all my heart to do it well, whatever I have devoted myself to I have devoted myself completely, in great aims and in small I have always thoroughly been in earnest.

A loving heart is the truest wisdom.

Oh the nerves the nerves, the mysteries of this machine called man! Oh the little that unhinges it poor creatures that we are!

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.

It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations.

He had but one eye and the pocket of prejudice runs in favor of two.

You don't carry in your countenance a letter of recommendation.

Let us be moral. Let us contemplate existence.

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

The age of chivalry is past. Bores have succeeded to dragons.

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

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.

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.

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

A boy's story is the best that is ever told.

That sort of half sigh which accompanied by two or three slight nods of the head is pity's small change in general society.

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.

May not the complaint that common people are above their station often take its rise in the fact of uncommon people being below theirs?

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.

A wonderful fact to reflect upon that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.

Renunciation remains sorrow though a sorrow borne willingly.

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

Do you spell it with a "V" or a "W"?' inquired the judge. 'That depends upon the taste and fancy of the speller my Lord'.

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

It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon and furnishes a complete answer to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the human species that every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last.

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

It was the best of times it was the worst of times.

Fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of friendship, and pass the rosy wine.

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

Anything for the quick life as the man said when he took the situation at the lighthouse.

He would make a lovely corpse.

Any man may be in good spirits and good temper when he's well dressed. There ain't much credit in that.

I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free.

Send forth the child and childish man together and blush for the pride that libels our own old happy state and gives its title to an ugly and distorted image.

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

I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year.

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.

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

I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don't trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week if there is anything to be got by it.

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

I never could have done what I have done without the habits of punctuality order and diligence without the determination to concentrate myself on one subject at a time.

Most men are individuals no longer so far as their business its activities or its moralities are concerned. They are not units but fractions.

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

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

The first rule of business is: Do other men for they would do you.

A person who can't pay gets another person who can't pay to guarantee that he can pay. Like a person with two wooden legs getting another person with two wooden legs to guarantee that he has got two natural legs. It don't make either of them able to do a walking-match.