The quotations of

Charles Dickens

English novelist and social critic

1812–1870

60 quotes, most often on Christmas, Life & Death and Love. Part of the Writers collection.

I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.
A Christmas Carol (1843), “Ebeneezer Scrooge”, in A Christmas Carol by Charles DickensIn context
- Christmas
I have always thought of Christmas time as a good time. A kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time. The only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely.
A Christmas Carol (1843)
- Christmas
A loving heart is the truest wisdom.
- Love
- Wisdom
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!
- Christmas
I do come home at Christmas. We all do, or we all should. We all come home, or ought to come home, for a short holiday⁠—the longer, the better⁠—from the great boarding school where we are forever working at our arithmetical slates, to take, and give a rest.
“A Christmas Tree”
- Christmas
Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving — HOW NOT TO DO IT.
Little Dorrit (1855-1857), Bk. I, Ch. 10
- Government
Reflect upon your present blessings — of which every man has many — not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
Sketches by Boz (1836), Characters, Ch. 2: A Christmas Dinner
- Advice
- Happiness
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.
Great Expectations (1860-1861), Ch. 44In context
- Love
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair
A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Book the First: Recalled to Life, Chapter IIn context
- History
- Hope
A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.
A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Book the First: Recalled to Life, Chapter IIIIn context
- Character
“Detestation of the high is the involuntary homage of the low.”
A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Book the Second: The Golden Thread, Chapter IXIn context
- Envy
- Power
Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death;⁠—the last, much the easiest to bestow, O Guillotine!
A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Book the Third: The Track of a Storm, Chapter VIn context
- Liberty
- Life & Death
Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind.
A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Book the Third: The Track of a Storm, Chapter XVIn context
- History
- Power
I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out.
A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Book the Third: The Track of a Storm, Chapter XVIn context
- Freedom
- Hope
“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.”
A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Book the Third: The Track of a Storm, Chapter XVIn context
- Life & Death

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