In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.
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.
There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose.
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 .)
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.
Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has many - not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
In a utilitarian age, of all other times, it is a matter of grave importance that fairy tales should be respected.(, 1853)
We need never be ashamed of our tears.
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 s...
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, to...
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.
Calamity with us, is made an excuse for doing wrong. With them, it is erected into a reason for their doing right. This is really the justice of rich to poor, and I protest against it because it is so...
Such is the influence which the condition of our own thoughts, exercises, even over the appearance of external objects. Men who look on nature, and their fellow-men, and cry that all is dark and gloom...
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.
'Tis love that makes the world go round, my baby.
No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.
She had curiously thoughtful and attentive eyes; eyes that were very pretty and very good.
When they took a young man into Tellson's London house, they hid him somewhere till he was old. They kept him in a dark place, like a cheese, until he had the full Tellson flavour and blue-mould upon...
There are very few moments in a man's existence when he experiences so much ludicrous distress, or meets with so little charitable commiseration, as when he is in pursuit of his own hat.
There is a wisdom of the head, and a wisdom of the heart.