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Charles Dickens

English writer whose novels depicted and criticized social injustice (1812-1870)

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Cheerfulness and contentment are great beautifiers and are famous preservers of youthful looks. – Charles DickensRate it:
This is a world of action, and not for moping and droning in. – Charles DickensRate it:
I do not know the American gentleman, god forgive me for putting two such words together. – Charles DickensRate it:
Train up a fig tree in the way it should go, and when you are old sit under the shade of it. – Charles DickensRate it:
'At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge,' said the gentleman, taking up a pen, 'it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. ... We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices.' – Charles DickensRate it:
'Out upon merry Christmas What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer... If I could work my will,' said Scrooge indignantly, 'every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' upon his lips should be boiled with his won pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should' – Charles DickensRate it:
Minds, like bodies, will often fall into a pimpled, ill-conditioned state from mere excess of comfort. – Charles DickensRate it:
Subdue your appetites, my dears, and you've conquered human nature. – Charles DickensRate it:
Then Bob proposed 'A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us' Which all his family re-echoed. 'God bless us every one' said Tiny Tim, the last of all. – Charles DickensRate it:
There is a wisdom of the head, and ... a wisdom of the heart. – Charles DickensRate it:
We need never be ashamed of our tears. – Charles DickensRate it:
Whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do it well whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself completely in great aims and in small I have always thoroughly been in earnest. – Charles DickensRate it:
With affection beaming out of one eye, and calculation shining out of the other. – Charles DickensRate it:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times it ws 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 we had everything before us, we had nothing before us we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way. – Charles DickensRate it:
No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another. – Charles DickensRate it:
If a pig could give his mind to anything, he would not be a pig. – Charles DickensRate it:
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, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all doing direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. – Charles DickensRate it:
I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free. – Charles DickensRate it:
A loving heart is the truest wisdom. – Charles DickensRate it:
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery. – Charles DickensRate it:
Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts. – Charles DickensRate it:
Many merry Christmases, friendships, great accumulation of cheerful recollections, affection on earth, and Heaven at last for all of us. – Charles DickensRate it:
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 honestly out of countenance any day of the week, if there is anything to get got by it. – Charles DickensRate it:
Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. – Charles DickensRate it:
Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. – Charles DickensRate it:
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. – Charles DickensRate it:
There is always something for which to be thankful. – Charles DickensRate it:
In love of home, the love of country has its rise. – Charles DickensRate it:
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. – Charles DickensRate it:
Accidents will occur in the best regulated families. – Charles DickensRate it:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. – Charles DickensRate it:
A man who could build a church, as one may say, by squinting at a sheet of paper. – Charles DickensRate it:
A merry Christmas to everybody A happy New Year to all the world – Charles DickensRate it:
Any man may be in good spirits and good temper when he's well dressed. There ain't much credit in that. – Charles DickensRate it:
'A merry Christmas, uncle God save you' cried a cheerful voice. 'Bah' said Scrooge. 'Humbug' – Charles DickensRate it:
...it was always said of him Scrooge that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us – Charles DickensRate it:
Accidents will occur in the best-regulated families; and in families not regulated by that pervading influence which sanctifies while it enhances... in short, by the influence of Woman, in the lofty character of Wife, they may be expected with confidence, and must be borne with philosophy. – Charles DickensRate it:
But I am sure that I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round...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. – Charles DickensRate it:
By the time we hit fifty, we have learned our hardest lessons. We have found out that only a few things are really important. We have learned to take life seriously, but never ourselves. – Charles DickensRate it:
Charity begins at home, and justice begins next door. – Charles DickensRate it:
God bless us every one! said Tiny Tim, the last of all. – Charles DickensRate it:
Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tries, and a touch that never hurts. – Charles DickensRate it:
Here's the rule for bargains: Do other men, for they would do you. That's the true business precept. – Charles DickensRate it:
I feel an earnest and humble desire, and shall till I die, to increase the stock of harmless cheerfulness. – Charles DickensRate it:
I never could have done what I have done without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one subject at a time... – Charles DickensRate it:
I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all year. – Charles DickensRate it:
If its individual citizens, to a man, are to be believed, it always is depressed, and always is stagnated, and always is at an alarming crisis, and never was otherwise; though as a body, they are ready to make oath upon the Evangelists, at any hour of the day or night, that it is the most thriving and prosperous of all countries on the habitable globe. – Charles DickensRate it:
It opens the lungs, washes the countenance, exercises the eyes, and softens down the temper; so cry away. – Charles DickensRate it:
It was a turkey He could never have stood upon his legs, that bird He would have snapped 'em off short in a minute, like sticks of sealing wax. – Charles DickensRate it:
Its very strange, said Mr. Dick that I never can get that quite right; I never can make that perfectly clear. – Charles DickensRate it:
Once upon a time--of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve--old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. – Charles DickensRate it:
Somehow he Tim gets thoughtful sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant for them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see. – Charles DickensRate it:
The law is sic a ass - a idiot. – Charles DickensRate it:

Cheerfulness and contentment are great beautifiers and are famous preservers of youthful looks.

– Charles DickensRate it:

This is a world of action, and not for moping and droning in.

– Charles DickensRate it:

I do not know the American gentleman, god forgive me for putting two such words together.

– Charles DickensRate it:

Train up a fig tree in the way it should go, and when you are old sit under the shade of it.

– Charles DickensRate it:

'At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge,' said the gentleman, taking up a pen, 'it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. ... We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices.'

– Charles DickensRate it:

'Out upon merry Christmas What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer... If I could work my will,' said Scrooge indignantly, 'every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' upon his lips should be boiled with his won pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should'

– Charles DickensRate it: