“History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.”

“When you drink of the water, don't forget the spring from which it flows.”

“But that Woodman and that Farmer, though they work unceasingly, work silently, and no one heard them as they went about with muffled tread: the rather, forasmuch as to entertain any suspicion that they were awake, was to be atheistical and traitorous.”

“Virtue shows quite as well in rags and patches as she does in purple and fine linen.”

“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.”

“You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon facts; nothing else will ever be of any service to them. Stick to facts, sir.”

“Quadruped lions are said to be savage only when they are hungry; biped lions are rarely sulky longer than when their appetite for distinction remains unappeased.”

“That glorious vision of doing good is so often the sanguine mirage of so many good minds.”

“External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him; no wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty.”

“Among the mighty store of wonderful chains that are for ever forging, day and night, in the cast iron-works of time and circumstance, there was one chain forged in the moment of that small conclusion, riveted to the foundations of heaven and earth, and gifted with invincible force to hold and drag.”

“The wind is rushing after us, the clouds are flying after us, the moon is plunging after us, and the whole wild night is in pursuit of us; but so far we are pursued by nothing else.”

“Up the two terrace flights of steps the rain ran wildly, and beat at the great door, like a swift messenger rousing those within.”

“The shadows of our own desires stand between us and our better angels, and thus their brightness is eclipsed.”

“Pause, you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.”

“He was touched in the cavity where his heart should have been, in that nest of addled eggs, where the birds of heaven would have lived if they had not been whistled away, by the fervour of this reproach.”

“You owe nothing to your younger self, but you owe everything to your present self.”

“Foul weather didn't know where to have him.”

“Don't you think that any secret course is an unworthy one?”

“A smattering of everything, and a knowledge of nothing.”

“It was the first time it had ever occurred to me, that this detestable cant of false humility might have originated out of the Heep family. I had seen the harvest, but had never thought of the seed.”

“"I don't know what day of the month it is!" said Scrooge. "I don't know how long I've been among the Spirits. I don't know anything. I'm quite a baby. Never mind. I don't care. I'd rather be a baby. Hallo! Whoop!"”

“Black are the brooding clouds and troubled the deep waters, when the Sea of Thought, first heaving from a calm, gives up its dead.”

“A man has no right to be a public man unless he meets the public's expectations.”

“Your day is done. Night is coming fast for you.”

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

“I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free. Mankind will surely not deny to Harold Skimpole what it concedes to the butterflies.”

“Let me feel now what sharp distress I may.”

“The last trumpet ever to be sounded shall blow even algebra to wreck.”

“You speak so feelingly and so manfully, Charles Darnay.”

“Throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people we most despise.”

“The change was made in me; the thing was done. Well or ill done, excusably or inexcusably, it was done.”

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

“The forces that affect our lives, the influences that mold and shape us, are often like whispers in a different room, teasingly indistinct, apprehended only with difficulty.”

“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.”

“At this time of the rolling year, the specter said, I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode? Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me?”

“Depth answers only to depth.”

“I find my breath gets short, but it seldom gets longer as a man gets older. I take it as it comes, and make the most of it. That's the best way, ain't it?”

“Judiciously show a cat milk, if you wish her to thirst for it. Judiciously show a dog his natural prey, if you wish him to bring it down one day.”

“The universe makes rather an indifferent parent, I am afraid.”

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

“My dear young lady, crime, like death, is not confined to the old and withered alone. The youngest and fairest are too often its chosen victims.”

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

“Now I return to this young fellow. I must tell him that he has great expectations.”

“Scattered wits take a long time in picking up.”

“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.”

“Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you're wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn't love you anymore.”

“Skewered through and through with office-pens, and bound hand and foot with red tape.”

“I am not old, but my young way was never the way to age.”

“Many who serve charity seek almost as much excitement in their work as pleasure-seekers do in theirs.”

“Dumb as a drum with a hole in it, sir.”