LitQuotes Blog

Today marks the 201st anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens.  To mark the event I thought I’d share 10 of my favorite Dickens quotes:

1. Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. ~  Great Expectations

2. At last, in the dead of the night, when the street was very still indeed, Little Dorrit laid the heavy head upon her bosom, and soothed her to sleep. And thus she sat at the gate, as it were alone; looking up at the stars, and seeing the clouds pass over them in their wild flight–which was the dance at Little Dorrit’s party. ~  Little Dorrit

3. “If you could see my legs when I take my boots off, you’d form some idea of what unrequited affection is.”  ~  Dombey and Son

4. “It’s in vain, Trot, to recall the past, unless it works some influence upon the present.”  ~  David Copperfield

5. All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself. Surely a curious thing. That I should innocently take a bad half-crown of somebody else’s manufacture, is reasonable enough; but that I should knowingly reckon the spurious coin of my own make, as good money!  ~  Great Expectations

6. “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!” ~  A Christmas Carol

7. 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 going 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. ~  A Tale of Two Cities

8. 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

9. “Its matter was not new to me, but was presented in a new aspect. It shook me in my habit – the habit of nine-tenths of the world – of believing that all was right about me, because I was used to it.” ~  Dombey and Son

10. “No one is useless in this world,” retorted the Secretary, “who lightens the burden of it for any one else.” ~  Our Mutual Friend

You might also enjoy these Dickens resources:

• The LitQuotes Charles Dickens Quotation Collection
• Our Partner Site – Charles Dickens Gad’s Hill Place
• Our Charles Dickens Gift Shop – Clothing, mugs, mousepads and more