Charles Dickens Quotes That Will Inspire You to Live Your Best Life

1. [T]he wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile. A Christmas Carol

2. A man is lucky if he is the first love of a woman. A woman is lucky if she is the last love of a man.

3. ‎And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire. A Tale of Two Cities

4. Before I go," he said, and paused -- "I may kiss her?"It was remembered afterwards that when he bent down and touched her face with his lips, he murmured some words. The child, who was nearest to him, told them afterwards, and told her grandchildren when she was a handsome old lady, that she heard him say, "A life you love. A Tale of Two Cities

5. But I am thinking like a lover, or like an ass: which I suppose is pretty nearly the same. Nicholas Nickleby

6. 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. There are people who will tell you that Christmas is not to them what it used to be; that each succeeding Christmas has found some cherished hope, or happy prospect, of the year before, dimmed or passed away; that the present only serves to remind them of reduced circumstances and straitened incomes—of the feasts they once bestowed on hollow friends, and of the cold looks that meet them now, in adversity and misfortune. Never heed such dismal reminiscences. There are few men who have lived long enough in the world who cannot call up such thoughts any day of the year. Then do not select the merriest of the three hundred and sixty-five for your doleful recollections, but draw your chair nearer the blazing fire—fill the glass and send round the song—and if your room be smaller than it was a dozen years ago, or if your glass be filled with reeking punch, instead of sparkling wine, put a good face on the matter, and empty it offhand, and fill another, and troll off the old ditty you used to sing, and thank God it’s no worse. Sketches by Boz

7. Dreams are the bright creatures of poem and legend, who sport on earth in the night season, and melt away in the first beam of the sun, which lights grim care and stern reality on their daily pilgrimage through the world. Nicholas Nickleby

8. Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes. Nicholas Nickleby

9. He went to the church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and for, and patted the children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of homes, and up to the windows, and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed of any walk, that anything, could give him so much happiness. (p. 119) A Christmas Carol

10. I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Great Expectations

11. I never had one hour's happiness in her society, and yet my mind all round the four-and-twenty hours was harping on the happiness of having her with me unto death. Great Expectations

12. I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul. A Tale of Two Cities

13. In a word, it was impossible for me to separate her, in the past or in the present, from the innermost life of my life. Great Expectations

14. Never close your lips to those whom you have already opened your heart.

15. Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since – on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made, are not more real, or more impossible to displace with your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. 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. But, in this separation I associate you only with the good, and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you! Great Expectations

16. So, I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me. Great Expectations

17. The two stand in the fast-thinning throng of victims, but they speak as if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, heart to heart, these two children of the Universal Mother, else so wide apart and differing, have come together on the dark highway, to repair home together and to rest in her bosom. A Tale of Two Cities

18. The unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I love her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection . Great Expectations

19. The unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I love her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection . Great Expectations

20. The unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I love her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection. Great Expectations

21. There is a wisdom of the head, and... there is a wisdom of the heart. Hard Times

22. There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor. A Christmas Carol

23. What greater gift than the love of a cat.

24. 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

25. I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me. A Tale of Two Cities

26. In a word, it was impossible for me to separate her, in the past or in the present, from the innermost life of my life. Great Expectations

27. It is a world of disappointment: often to the hopes we most cherish, and hopes that do our nature the greatest honour. Oliver Twist

28. It is not possible to know how far the influence of any amiable, honest-hearted duty-doing man flies out into the world, but it is very possible to know how it has touched one's self in going by. Great Expectations

29. Never say never

30. Poetry makes life what lights and music do the stage. The Pickwick Papers