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.

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.
David Copperfield (1850), Chapter 12In context
- Happiness
- Money
‘Never,’ said my aunt, ‘be mean in anything; never be false; never be cruel. Avoid those three vices, Trot, and I can always be hopeful of you.’
David Copperfield (1850), Chapter 15In context
- Advice
- Virtue
Accidents will occur in the best-regulated families
David Copperfield (1850), Chapter 28In context
- Family
My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest.
David Copperfield (1850), Chapter 42In context
- Motivation & Goals
- Work
London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill.
Bleak House (1853), Chapter IIn context
It is said that the children of the very poor are not brought up, but dragged up.
Bleak House (1853), Chapter VIIn context
- Children
Not to put too fine a point upon it
Bleak House (1853), Chapter XIIn context
- Talking
It’s my old girl that advises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained.
Bleak House (1853), Chapter XXVIIIn context
- Comedy
- Marriage
It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations.
Bleak House (1853), Chapter XXVIIIIn context
- Family
The one great principle of the English law is to make business for itself.
Bleak House (1853), Chapter XXXIXIn context
- Clever Jabs
- Laws
Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, right reverends and wrong reverends of every order. Dead, men and women, born with heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around us every day.
Bleak House (1853), Chapter XLVIIIn context
- Life & Death
It was a nice sickly season just at this time. In commercial phrase, coffins were looking up
Oliver Twist (1838), Chapter VIIn context
- Comedy
“It opens the lungs, washes the countenance, exercises the eyes, and softens down the temper,” said Mr. Bumble. “So cry away.”
Oliver Twist (1838), Chapter XXXVIIIn context
- Comedy
Ride on! Rough-shod if need be, smooth-shod if that will do, but ride on! Ride on over all obstacles, and win the race!
David Copperfield (1850), Chapter 28In context
- Motivation & Goals
My experience teaches me, Lady Dedlock, that most of the people I know would do far better to leave marriage alone. It is at the bottom of three fourths of their troubles.
Bleak House (1853), Chapter XLIIn context
- Marriage

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