Thoughts by Charles Dickens Quotes in English Quotations

The noise in this room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children there, than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count; and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not forty children conducting themselves like one, but every child was conducting itself like forty.

It should be Christmas Day, I am sure,” said she, “on which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. You know he is, Robert! Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow! . . . I’ll drink his health for your sake and the Day’s . . . not for his. Long life to him! A merry Christmas and a happy new year! He’ll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt!

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.

In the moonlight which is always sad, as the light of the sun itself is--as the light called human life is--at its coming and its going.

He was conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares long, long, forgotten!

I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.

It was a long and gloomy night that gathered on me, haunted by the ghosts of many hopes, of many dear remembrances, many errors, many unavailing sorrows and regrets.

I see a vacant seat,” replied the Ghost, “in the poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die.

And still I stood looking at the house, thinking how happy I should be if I lived there with her, and knowing that I never was happy with her, but always miserable.

Charles Dickens Thoughts List

You have been the last dream of my soul.

A heart well worth winning, and well won. A heart that, once won, goes through fire and water for the winner, and never changes, and is never daunted.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

What greater gift than the love of a cat.

We need never be ashamed of our tears.

I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul.

And what an example of the power of dress young Oliver Twist was!

Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it.

A word in earnest is as good as a speech.

- Quotation

We forge the chains we wear in life.

I only ask to be free, the butterflies are free.

Poetry makes life what lights and music do the stage.

He would make a lovely corpse.

I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me.

Scattered wits take a long time in picking up.

Darkness was cheap, and Scrooge liked it.

Fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of friendship.

Take the pencil and write under my name, 'I forgive her.

One always begins to forgive a place as soon as it’s left behind.

Detestation of the high is the involuntary homage of the low.

Life is made of so many partings welded together.

A multitude of people and yet a solitude.

I stole her heart away and put ice in its place.

One should never be ashamed to cry. Tears are rain on the dust of earth.

I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.

Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.

Marley was dead.

A loving heart is the truest wisdom.

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

There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.

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

Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.

I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free.

It opens the lungs, washes the countenance, exercises the eyes, and softens down the temper, so cry away.

I hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil or misfortune in the world.

The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.

Charity begins at home, and justice begins next door.

Ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies.

Every traveler has a home of his own, and he learns to appreciate it the more from his wandering.

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

Trifles make the sum of life.

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The first rule of business; treat others like they want to treat you.

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The broken heart. You think you will die, but you just keep living, day after day after terrible day.

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I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.

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No one who can read, ever looks at a book, even unopened on a shelf, like one who cannot.

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Spring is the time of year when it is summer in the sun and winter in the shade.

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You are in every line I have ever read.

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A day wasted on others is not wasted on one's self.

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There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth.

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The most important thing in life is to stop saying ‘I wish’ and start saying ‘I will’. Consider nothing impossible, then treat possibilities as probabilities.

Change begets change. Nothing propagates so fast.

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It is because I think so much of warm and sensitive hearts, that I would spare them from being wounded.

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Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh.

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So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise.

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There is prodigious strength in sorrow and despair.

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And O there are days in this life, worth life and worth death.

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People like us don’t go out at night cause people like them see us for what we are.

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Family not only need to consist of merely those whom we share blood, but also for those whom we'd give blood.

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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.

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.

A day wasted on others is not wasted on one’s self.

Think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you.

Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule.

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

Family not only need to consist of merely those whom we share blood, but also for those whom we’d give blood.

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.

The most important thing in life is to stop saying 'I wish' and start saying 'I will.' Consider nothing impossible, then treat possiblities as probabilities.

It’s not my business,” Scrooge returned. “It’s enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people’s. Mine occupies me constantly.

No space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused.

I am what you designed me to be.I am your blade. You cannot now complain if you also feel the hurt.

For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.

Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There’s no better rule.

A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it.

I am what you designed me to be. I am your blade. You cannot now complain if you also feel the hurt.

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

Death may beget life, but oppression can beget nothing other than itself.

Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has plenty; not on your past misfortunes of which all men have some.

No space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunity misused!

The most important thing in life is to stop saying ‘I wish’ and start saying ‘I will.’ Consider nothing impossible, then treat possibilities as probabilities.

Good never come of such evil, a happier end was not in nature to so unhappy a beginning.

There are talkers enough among us; I’ll be one of the doers.

My advice is, never do to-morrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time. Collar him!

There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.

A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.

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.

Family not only needs to consist of merely those whom we share blood, but also of those whom we’d give blood.

There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast.

Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has many – not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.

To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart.

In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.

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.

Give me a moment, because I like to cry for joy. It’s so delicious, John dear, to cry for joy.

I love your daughter fondly, dearly, disninterestedly, devotedly. If ever there were love in the world, I love her.

Nothing that we do, is done in vain. I believe, with all my soul, that we shall see triumph.

Not knowing how he lost himself, or how he recovered himself, he may never feel certain of not losing himself again.

Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures, hover about a lighted candle. Can the candle help it?

And I am bored to death with it. Bored to death with this place, bored to death with my life, bored to death with myself.

No varnish can hide the grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself.

There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose.

Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule.

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 object at a time.

There is a man who would give his life to keep a life you love beside you.

Give me a moment, because I like to cry for joy. It's so delicious, John dear, to cry for joy.

I had considered how the things that never happen, are often as much realities to us, in their effects, as those that are accomplished.

It's in vain to recall the past, unless it works some influence upon the present.

Then tell the Wind and Fire where to stop, but don’t tell me.

Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years it was a splendid laugh!

Women can always put things in fewest words. Except when it's blowing up; and then they lengthens it out.

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

A very little key will open a very heavy door.

Break their hearts my pride and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy.

It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations.

I love these little people; and it is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh from God, love us.

New thoughts and hopes were whirling through my mind, and all the colours of my life were changing.

He knew enough of the world to know that there is nothing in it better than the faithful service of the heart.

Don’t be afraid! We won’t make an author of you, while there’s an honest trade to be learnt, or brick-making to turn to.

If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.

Cheerfulness and contentment are great beautifiers, and are famous preservers of good looks.

Constancy in love is a good thing; but it means nothing, and is nothing, without constancy in every kind of effort.

Love, though said to be afflicted with blindness, is a vigilant watchman.

I would ask you to believe that he has a heart he very, very seldom reveals, and that there are deep wounds in it. My dear, I have seen it bleeding.

But, tears were not the things to find their way to Mr. Bumble’s soul; his heart was waterproof.

There was something very comfortable in having plenty of stationery.

Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be.

Perhaps second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, come easily off and on.

I have sometimes sat alone here of an evening, listening, until I have made the echoes out to be the echoes of all the footsteps that are coming by and by into our lives.

Dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine.

Her contempt for me was so strong, that it became infectious, and I caught it.

She had curiously thoughtful and attentive eyes; eyes that were very pretty and very good.

You touch some of the reasons for my going, not for my staying away.

I confess I have yet to learn that a lesson of the purest good may not be drawn from the vilest evil.

He’s a comical old fellow,” said Scrooge’s nephew, “that’s the truth: and not so pleasant as he might be. However, his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing to say against him.

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.

While there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour.

Try not to associate bodily defect with mental, my good friend, except for a solid reason.

All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself.

Of little worth as life is when we misuse it, it is worth that effort. It would cost nothing to lay down if it were not.

There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour.

Sudden shifts and changes are no bad preparation for political life.

Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!

When the time comes, let loose a tiger and a devil; but wait for the time with the tiger and the devil chained -not shown- yet always ready.

Reflect upon your present blessings -- of which every man has many -- not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.

There are chords in the human heart – strange, varying strings – which are only struck by accident; which will remain mute and senseless to appeals the most passionate and earnest, and respond at last to the slightest casual touch.

But, in this separation I associate you only with the good and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you have done far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may.

So does a whole world, with all its greatnesses and littlenesses, lie in a twinkling star. And as mere human knowledge can split a ray of light and analyse the manner of its composition, so, sublimer intelligences may read in the feeble shining of this earth of ours, every thought and act, every vice and virtue, of every responsible creature on it.

Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,” said Scrooge. “But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!

He looked like death; not death as it shows in shroud and coffin, but in the guise it wears when life has just departed; when a young and gentle spirit has, but an instant, fled to Heaven, and the gross air of the world has not had time to breathe upon the changing dust it hallowed.

There is no remorse so deep as that which is unavailing; if we would be spared its tortures, let us remember this, in time.

Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before--more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.

There is a drowsy state, between sleeping and waking, when you dream more in five minutes with your eyes half open, and yourself half conscious of everything that is passing around you, than you would in five nights with your eyes fast closed, and your senses wrapt in perfect unconsciousness.

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.

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!

It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.

The earth had donned her mantle of brightest green; and shed her richest perfumes abroad. It was the prime and vigour of the year; all things were glad and flourishing.

Love her, love her, love her! If she favours you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces – and as it gets older and stronger, it will tear deeper – love her, love her, love her!

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 completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest.

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.

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world.

Although the happiness and delight of my life lie buried there too, I have not made a coffin of my heart, and sealed it up for ever on my best affections. Deep affliction has only made them stronger; it ought, I think, for it should refine our nature.

I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.

The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.

I looked at the stars, and considered how awful it would be for a man to turn his face up to them as he froze to death, and see no help or pity in all the glittering multitude.

Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor and content to be so, until, in good season, we could improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You are changed. When it was made, you were another man.

You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!

It is a pleasant world we live in, sir, a very pleasant world. There are bad people in it, Mr. Richard, but if there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.

We changed again, and yet again, and it was now too late and too far to go back, and I went on. And the mists had all solemnly risen now, and the world lay spread before me.

I admire machinery as much as any man, and am as thankful to it as any man can be for what it does for us. But it will never be a substitute for the face of a man, with his soul in it, encouraging another man to be brave and true.

Do the wise thing and the kind thing too, and make the best of us and not the worst.

‘There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,’ returned the nephew. ‘Christmas among the rest. . . . And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!‘

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

‘Business!’ cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. ‘Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!‘

‘It is required of every man,’ the Ghost returned, ‘that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world—oh, woe is me!—and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!‘

He went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows, and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed that any walk - that anything - could give him so much happiness.

I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss. I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy. I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. 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.

His wealth is of no use to him. He don’t do any good with it. . . . I am sorry for him; I couldn’t be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers by his ill whims! Himself, always.

Although a skillful flatterer is a most delightful companion if you have him all to yourself, his taste becomes very doubtful when he takes to complimenting other people.

There were two classes of charitable people: one, the people who did a little and made a great deal of noise; the other, the people who did a great deal and made no noise at all.

I wish to be left alone,” said Scrooge. “Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry.

Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don’t know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.

This is the even-handed dealing of the world!” he said. “There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!

A silent look of affection and regard when all other eyes are turned coldly away – the consciousness that we possess the sympathy and affection of one being when all others have deserted us – is a hold, a stay, a comfort, in the deepest affliction, which no wealth could purchase, or power bestow.

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.

The cloud of caring for nothing, which overshadowed him with such a fatal darkness, was very rarely pierced by the light within him.

You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!

A poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every twenty-fifth of December!” said Scrooge, buttoning his great-coat to the chin. “But I suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next morning.

You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer,” said Miss Pross, in her breathing. “Nevertheless, you shall not get the better of me. I am an Englishwoman.

They are Man’s . . . And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.