I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the scantiness of my resources and the difficulty of my life... I know that, but for the mercy of God, I might easily have been, for any care that was taken of me, a little robber or a vagabond.
— Charles Dickens
That sort of half sigh, which, accompanied by two or three slight nods of the head, is pity's small change in general society.
May not the complaint, that common people are above their station, often take its rise in the fact of uncommon people being below theirs?
Oh the nerves, the nerves; the mysteries of this machine called man! Oh the little that unhinges it, poor creatures that we are!
It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations.
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.
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.
There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast.
We forge the chains we wear in life.
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.
Renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly.
There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth.
This is a world of action, and not for moping and droning in.
He had but one eye, and the popular prejudice runs in favor of two.
Great men are seldom over-scrupulous in the arrangement of their attire.
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.
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.
Little Red Riding Hood was my first love. I felt that if I could have married Little Red Riding Hood, I should have known perfect bliss.
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.
It's my old girl that advises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained.
When a man bleeds inwardly, it is a dangerous thing for himself; but when he laughs inwardly, it bodes no good to other people.
Dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine.
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.
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.
There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.
'Tis love that makes the world go round, my baby.
We are so very 'umble.
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.
A day wasted on others is not wasted on one's self.
Life is made of ever so many partings welded together.
The men who learn endurance, are they who call the whole world, brother.
Credit is a system whereby a person who can not pay gets another person who can not pay to guarantee that he can pay.
It opens the lungs, washes the countenance, exercises the eyes, and softens down the temper; so cry away.
The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.
Christmas time! That man must be a misanthrope indeed, in whose breast something like a jovial feeling is not roused - in whose mind some pleasant associations are not awakened - by the recurrence of Christmas.
Charity begins at home, and justice begins next door.
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.
The civility which money will purchase, is rarely extended to those who have none.
There are only two styles of portrait painting; the serious and the smirk.
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.
Fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of friendship; and pass the rosy wine.
Subdue your appetites, my dears, and you've conquered human nature.
A boy's story is the best that is ever told.
If there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.
Vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!
A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.
Anything for the quick life, as the man said when he took the situation at the lighthouse.
There are strings in the human heart that had better not be vibrated.
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.
Bring in the bottled lightning, a clean tumbler, and a corkscrew.
