Wisdom Quotes, page 107

“Gold, for the instant, lost its luster in his eyes, for there were countless treasures of the heart which it could never purchase.”

“I want to escape from myself. For when I do start up and stare myself seedily in the face, as happens to be my case at present, my blankness is inconceivable—indescribable; my misery amazing.”

“What an immense impression Paris made upon me. It is the most extraordinary place in the world!”

“Some women's faces are, in their brightness, a prophecy; and some, in their sadness, a history.”

“I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes.”

“I think the Romans must have aggravated one another very much with their noses. Perhaps they became the restless people they were in consequence.”

“Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that. That was the pudding.”

“I never see any difference in boys. I only know two sorts of boys: mealy boys and beef-faced boys.”

“We lawyers are always curious, always inquisitive, always picking up odds and ends for our patchwork minds, since there is no knowing when and where they may fit into some corner.”

“There might be some credit in being jolly.”

“In London he had expected neither to walk on pavements of gold nor to lie on beds of roses; he expected labour, he found it, he did it, and made the best of it. In this his prosperity consisted.”

“Their demeanor is invariably morose, sullen, clownish and repulsive. I should think there is not, on the face of the earth, a people so entirely destitute of humor, vivacity, or the capacity for enjoyment.”

“My guiding star always is: get hold of portable property.”

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

“There was no pause, no pity, no peace, no interval of relenting rest, no measurement of time. Though days and nights circled as regularly as when time was young, and the evening and morning were the first day, other count of time there was none.”

“There was nothing remarkable in this. They were not a handsome family, not well dressed; their shoes were far from waterproof, their clothes were scanty, and Peter had likely known the inside of a pawnbroker’s. But they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time.”

“Hunger was shred into atomics in every farthing porringer of husky chips of potato, fried with some reluctant drops of oil.”

“Marley was dead: to begin with.”

“Ever been kicked? Might have been. Frequently? No. Ever kicked down stairs? Decidedly not; once received a kick at the top of a staircase, and fell down stairs of his own accord.”

“Rich folks may ride on camels, but it ain't so easy for 'em to see out of a needle's eye.”

“A man in public life expects to be sneered at — it is the fault of his elevated situation, and not of himself.”

“Oh, a dainty plant is the ivy green, That creepeth o'er ruins old! Of right choice food are his meals, I ween, In his cell so lone and cold. Creeping where no life is seen, A rare old plant is the ivy green.”

“Regrets are the natural property of grey hairs.”

“The beach was a desert of heaps of sea and stones tumbling wildly about, and the sea did what it liked, and what it liked was destruction.”

“My hair stands on end at the cost and charges of these boys. Why was I ever a father! Why was my father ever a father!”

“My life is one damned, horrid grind.”

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

“An evening wind uprose too, and the slighter branches cracked and rattled as they moved, in skeleton dances, to its moaning music.”

“A contented spirit is the sweetness of existence.”

“Captain Cuttle, like all mankind, little knew how much hope had survived within him under discouragement, until he felt its death-shock.”