Quotes by Charles Dickens

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Too good a life often spoils the character, as too much food spoils the stomach, and in these cases both body and soul are successfully cured only by remedies not only disagreeable, but even disgusting.

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An outright or evasive lie, expressed or not, is always a lie.

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In this world, anyone who is able to lighten another's burden is useful.

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If you wish to reward honesty, if you wish to encourage good, to help the careless, to root out evil, or to correct defects, education is the only thing necessary, the only end worthy of consideration.

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A man alive and without a mind is more terrible than a dead man.

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Of all the inventions and discoveries in science and the arts, of all the important consequences of the surprising development of technique, the first place is the printing of books...

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Literature... is bound to be true to the people, bound to fight passionately and ardently for their progress, prosperity and happiness.

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Love is the most interesting and the most excusable of all human weaknesses.

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Life is given to us with the indispensable condition of defending it valiantly until the last moment of life.

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Something high is not always above all, and something low is not always base.

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Man cannot truly improve himself if he does not help others to improve themselves.

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Man must respect his vocation, whatever it may be, and ask others to respect it, if this vocation is worthy of respect.

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Diligence is the soul of all work and the key to prosperity.

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The truth is always brave.

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The first rule of business: do for others what you would have others do for you.

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There is still no such hill to the top of which perseverance does not eventually reach.

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It's good to be a child sometimes, and when would be better than at Christmas, since the majestic founder of the holiday was also a child.

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What else is Christmas to you but a time to pay bills without money; a period when you are a year older but not an hour richer, when you look over your books and realize that you have wasted twelve months without any profit?

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Blindness is better than an evil eye.

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If sickness and sadness are contagious, an honest, fair, and noble way of doing things, nothing in this world is more contagious than laughter and good cheer.

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Oh, cold, cold, austere, fearful death, raise here an altar and adorn it with all the horrors at your disposal, for this is your realm! You can't bend a single hair of a well-loved, respected, clean head for your terrible purposes, you can't make a single feature of his face hateful. It doesn't matter that the hand is helpless and falls back when released, it doesn't matter that the heart and pulse have stopped beating; all that matters is that the hand was once open, giving, and just; the heart is brave, warm and tender, the heartbeat of a real man. Strike down, shadow, strike down! His good deeds will spring up from the wound to scatter the seeds of immortal life in the world!

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People may like to remember on Christmas Day the one who raised the lame and restored sight to the blind.

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No amount of regret can make up for missed opportunities.

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Every person is expected (...) that the soul that lives in him walks among his fellow men, travels in distant regions; and if he fails in life, then after his death he is condemned to wander in the world—oh, woe is me! - and witness what he did not take part of, although he could have taken it in his earthly life and turned it into happiness!

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Although Christmas has never brought me a single penny of gold or silver, I still believe that it has been, and always will be, good for me.

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As a result of the eternal, uninterrupted work of immortal beings, the many goodness that this earth can create develop.

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This day is quite different from all the other days, it does not resemble any other, even the color of the sky is not the same - it is much sadder.

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This is how it is throughout our lives: in our darkest moments, we act according to the whims of people who are the objects of our contempt at other times.

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With a six-horse carriage, you can drive along good old stairs or bad new laws.

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Man's life's journey foreshadows a certain end, and if he does not deviate from it, it will lead him there. (...) But if the direction changes, the end will be different.

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Nothing good happens in this world without a few people laughing at it in the beginning.

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Celebrate Christmas your way, and let me celebrate it my way too!

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He who does not feel that he owes a debt of gratitude to the one whose supreme law is goodness and compassion for all living beings cannot be truly happy.

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If your annual income is £20 and your annual expenditure is £19, the result is happiness.

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Do all the good you can, and do it as quietly as possible!

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May you have a heart that never turns to stone, a mind that never burns to anger, and a touch that never hurts!

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The New Testament is the best book the world has ever known or will ever know.

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If the devil walks the earth like a roaring lion, he only occasionally lures a game or a hunter after him. But if you dress fashionably, you're out and about; if he is filled to the brim with both sin and virtue, and hell interests him as little as salvation; then, even if he takes pleasure in handing out red ribbons or lighting a red fire, he is truly dangerous.

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Children of Man (...). This boy's name is: Ignorance. This girl is Necessity. Beware of both.

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The souls of the dead sometimes return to earth, to visit the places hallowed by love, the immortal love beyond the grave.

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I love him defiantly with common sense, promise, hope, peace of mind, and happiness, and nothing can distract me from my passion.

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I don't want to express my feelings, but as usual I think about myself much more than healthy sleep would allow.

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The pain of saying goodbye is insignificant compared to the joy of seeing you again.

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Whenever I thought of the approaching Christmas (...), I thought of it as a pleasant, forgiving, beneficent, peaceful time; to the only time of the year when men and women open their closed hearts as one, and think of those poorer than them as fellow travelers on the journey to the grave, and not as some alien race traveling in a different direction.

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Home is a very strong word; no mage spoke and no spirit answered with greater force. This word and this name are stronger than any spell.

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May the new year be happy for you and many more that you can make happy!

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There is a certain nebulous state between sleep and wakefulness, when we have only a vague idea of ​​what is around us. In this case, we dream more in five minutes with half-open eyes than in five nights, when we lie with our eyes completely closed, in complete unconsciousness. At such times, the mortal sees quite clearly what is going on in his soul, which, freed from the body, leaps up from the earth with great force and races through time and space.

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Painters always paint ladies more beautiful than they really are, because otherwise they wouldn't get orders. The man who invented the machine for making pictures written by light should have known that he would never succeed with it, because he is too honest and not flattering in the slightest.

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There are certainly books whose binding alone is valuable.

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There is no difference between the boys. There are only two types of boys: milk-faced boys and tripe-faced boys.

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In life, too, the sudden transition from the lavish banquet table to the death bed, from the mourning veil to the festive gown is quite shocking - except that in these cases we ourselves are actors, not passive observers: and here is the big difference. In the painted world of the stage, the actors do not notice the wild transformations, sudden outbursts of passion and temper, which those who just watch the play find outrageous and incapable. Sudden changes of scene, rapid transformations in space and time have long been accepted by the practice of literature, and many even consider them to be a sign of great writing art. These critics believe that the better the writer is, the more dilemmas he leaves his heroes at the end of each chapter.

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Justice sometimes confuses the innocent with the guilty when it happens to find them together.

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Women can express everything in the most concise way, except when they are fighting, because then their mouths never want to stop.

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Sometimes even the most insignificant thing can disturb the balance of our soul.

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Unfortunately, the faces created by nature do not delight us with their beauty for long. Worry, sadness, and hunger distort facial features as much as hearts. Only when these passions have fallen asleep and lost their power forever will these troubling clouds pass away. It is a common phenomenon that the features of the dead, despite their rigidity, take on the long-forgotten expression of a sleeping child. Sometimes a dead face is so calm and peaceful that those who knew the deceased in their happy childhood kneel in reverence next to the coffin and see the dead as an angel already here on earth.

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How often do the same delightful qualities develop in the noblest lord and the dirtiest love-house child!

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Man, when he is awake, rejoices at the striking of the clock at night, because it announces life, the approaching new day.

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A little disorder in the body is enough to mislead our senses.

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Fate imposed it on all people to influence their fellow human beings and their environment with their spirit. Whoever failed to do this during his lifetime must complete it after his death.

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No matter how long the journey of repentance, it cannot make up for a life wasted in uselessness.

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Stop here, who reads these lines, and think for a minute about the long chain of your days! Whether it is made of iron, gold, thorns, or flowers, it will not bind you if one day, on a memorable day, the very first eye is not ready.

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From every line of every book I read the name of your grace.

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Some say three is the magic number, others say seven is. None of them are, believe me, son. One, that magic number... the first person.

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The soul is unable to sever the ties that bind it to old allies and familiar communities, and even if it has set itself a new goal, even if its new goal is more important than anything else, these thoughts will always lead it astray.

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The woman can never act without the knowledge and consent of her husband. (...) If this is the perception of the law, then the law has six circles! Then the law is stupid, please! Then the law is a bachelor, please! If the eye of the law sees this, it sees wrong! And I just wish for him that the experience will open his eyes. Experience, sir! I can't wish him a greater punishment than that.

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Sure, life is full of disappointments. Often the very hopes that are dearest to our hearts and most to our honor are not fulfilled.

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Sometimes one or two soft sounds or the sparkle of rippling water, the smell of a flower or a kind word dropped by chance suddenly awaken in us the memory of distant images that we never see in reality. Then they disappear like a breath, but for a moment we remember happier times, scenes that we could never have recalled in our souls by sheer will.

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Of course, of course - may God bless the female eye! They never see anything, good or bad, other than the side of the question that first came before them.

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You yourself must feel that you are no longer who you were. I have not changed. As long as we were two bodies, one soul, we could count on being happy. Now our diametrically opposed goals can only bring us unhappiness. I won't say how much and how I thought about it, but I say openly that I am ready to give you your freedom back.

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I don't even know why I care so much about your fate. Those whom I loved dearly are already resting underground, the happiness and joy of my life rests there with them, but that's why I didn't carve a coffin out of my heart and I didn't bury my emotions forever. The great sorrow only strengthened and deepened them.

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The shadows of things that could have happened can be chased away.

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I will celebrate Christmas in my heart and try to celebrate it all year round. I want to live in the Past, Present and Future. Let the spirits of these three compete in me.

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People of a voracious nature, boasting that they understand thunder, and are equally capable of everything; the enormous scope of their abilities for adventures is usually expressed by the saying that they are "head or write", they know everything from games to murder; and between these two opposite extremes there is indeed a rather long and encompassing line of things.

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May the life you have chosen make you happy!

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The world treats man so justly! (...) He judges nothing as harshly as poverty: and with his word, he judges nothing as harshly as when someone strives for wealth!

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It's not a big deal. (...) It's really not big for you. Another idol took my place; and if it can cheer and comfort you in times to come, as I wished, then I really have no reason to grieve.

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Don't you know that every Christian soul who works honorably in his little circle, whatever it may be, will find his mortal life too short for the inexhaustible opportunity to make himself useful! Don't you know that no amount of regret can make up for the missed opportunities of a lifetime? I missed it though.

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As a rule, it is precisely the one who is in trouble who sees his own situation the least clearly. An outsider is always wiser.

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No one can achieve any results in any field if his life is full of perpetual worries and troubles.

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There is a kind of sleep that fascinates the body, but only half enslaves the soul.

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A word, a look, a smile - such nothingness that they can hardly be measured or taken into account. And yet how important all this is, at the right moment it is worth more than if he distributed his entire wealth among us!

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Marriage is like a book whose first chapter is a fiery poem and the rest is prose.

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It is a very fair and just thing that, while sickness and sorrow are contagious, nothing spreads with such epidemic rapidity as laughter and good cheer.

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Each person is created to be the deepest mystery and riddle to others.

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I set before you as solemnly as possible the truth and beauty of the Christian religion, as it comes from Christ himself.

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I think that young hearts often have great feelings that don't last long, and when the hot desires are fulfilled, they often pass away all the sooner.

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Is it better to receive something good, but then lose it, than if we never had it at all?

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No one is useless in this world (...) who lightens someone else's burden.

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- Why do you doubt your senses? - Because (...) even a trifle disturbs them. A slight mess in my stomach makes them look like cheaters.