“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.”

“Try to do unto others as you would have them do to you, and do not be discouraged if they fail sometimes. It is much better that they should fail than you.”

“These people hated me with the hatred of cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest meanness.”

“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.”

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”

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

“There is something in sickness that breaks down the pride of manhood.”

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

“In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection to justify much national boasting.”

“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.”

“Spite is a little word, but it represents as strange a jumble of feelings and compound of discords, as any polysyllable in the language.”

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

“The civility which money will purchase is rarely extended to those who have none.”

“Little Red Riding Hood was my first love. I felt that if I could have married Little Red Riding Hood, I should have known perfect bliss.”

“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.”

“I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don't trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it.”

“The ocean asks for nothing but those who stand by her shores gradually attune themselves to her rhythm.”

“Mystery and disappointment are not absolutely indispensable to the growth of love, but they are, very often, its powerful auxiliaries.”

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

“When love is not madness it is not love.”

“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.”

“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”

“Women can always put things in the fewest words, except when it's blowing up; then they lengthen it out.”

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

“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.”

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.”

“I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief.”

“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.”

“Cows are my passion. What I have ever sighed for has been to retreat to a Swiss farm, and live entirely surrounded by cows - and china.”

“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.”

“This life is what you make it. No matter what, you're going to mess up sometimes — that's a universal truth. The good part is you get to choose how you're going to mess up. Girls will be your friends; they'll act like it anyway. But remember, some come and some go. The ones that stay with you through everything are your true best friends — don't let them go. Sisters often make the best friends in the world. As for lovers, they'll come and go too, and most of them are going to break your heart. You can't give up because if you give up you'll never find your soulmate, that half who makes you whole. Just because you fail once doesn't mean you'll fail at everything. Keep trying. Hold on and always believe in yourself. Keep your head high, keep your chin up, and keep smiling — life has a lot to offer.”

“For your popular rumour, unlike the rolling stone of the proverb, is one which gathers a deal of moss in its wanderings up and down.”

“Friendship is born at the moment when one person says to another, "What! You too? I thought I was the only one."”

“I think you still love me, but we can’t escape the fact that I’m not enough for you. I knew this was going to happen. So I’m not blaming you for falling in love with another woman. I’m not angry, either. I should be, but I’m not. I just feel pain. A lot of pain. I thought I could imagine how much this would hurt, but I was wrong.”

“If her eyes had no expression, it was probably because they had nothing to express. If she had few wrinkles, it was because her mind had never traced its name or any other inscription on her face.”

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