Charles Dickens Quotes

The father of this pleasant grandfather, of the neighbourhood of Mount Pleasant, was a horny-skinned, two-legged, money-getting species of spider who spun webs to catch unwary flies and retired into holes until they were entrapped. The name of this old pagan's god was Compound Interest. ~ Bleak House by Charles Dickens "The universe," he observed, "makes rather an indifferent parent, I am afraid." ~ Bleak House by Charles Dickens "We thought that, perhaps," said I, hesitating, "it is right to begin with the obligations of home, sir; and that, perhaps, while those are overlooked and neglected, no other duties can possibly be substituted for them." ~ Bleak House by Charles Dickens "A word in earnest is as good as a speech." ~ Bleak House by Charles Dickens "When Tom shut up the house, mate, to go to rack, the beds was left, all made, like as if somebody was a-going to sleep in every bed. And if you was to walk through the bedrooms now, you'd see the ragged mouldy bedclothes a heaving and a heaving like seas. And a heaving and a heaving with what?" he says. "'Why, with the rats under 'em." ~ Tom Tiddler's Ground by Charles Dickens The village street was like most other village streets: wide for its height, silent for its size, and drowsy in the dullest degree. ~ Tom Tiddler's Ground by Charles Dickens "Your Honour, unless your Honour, without a moment's loss of time, makes sail for the nearest shore, this is a doomed ship, and her name is the Coffin!" ~ The Uncommercial Traveller - Nurse's Stories by Charles Dickens The young woman who brought me acquainted with Captain Murderer had a fiendish enjoyment of my terrors, and used to begin, I remember - as a sort of introductory overture - by clawing the air with both hands, and uttering a long low hollow groan. So acutely did I suffer from this ceremony in combination with this infernal Captain, that I sometimes used to plead I thought I was hardly strong enough and old enough to hear the story again just yet. ~ The Uncommercial Traveller - Nurse's Stories by Charles Dickens The first diabolical character who intruded himself on my peaceful youth (as I called to mind that day at Dullborough), was a certain Captain Murderer. This wretch must have been an off-shoot of the Blue Beard family, but I had no suspicion of the consanguinity in those times. His warning name would seem to have awakened no general prejudice against him, for he was admitted into the best society and possessed immense wealth. Captain Murderer's mission was matrimony, and the gratification of a cannibal appetite with tender brides. ~ The Uncommercial Traveller - Nurse's Stories by Charles Dickens "There are quiet victories and struggles, great sacrifices of self, and noble acts of heroism, in it - even in many of its apparent lightnesses and contradictions - not the less difficult to achieve, because they have no earthly chronicle or audience - done every day in nooks and corners, and in little households, and in men's and women's hearts - any one of which might reconcile the sternest man to such a world, and fill him with belief and hope in it." ~ The Battle of Life by Charles Dickens