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

Charles Dickens

An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself.

Charles Dickens

Reflect upon your present blessings – of which every man has many – not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.

Charles Dickens

My dear if you could give me a cup of tea to clear my muddle of a head I should better understand your affairs.

Charles Dickens

Although a skillful flatterer is a most delightful companion if you have him all to yourself, his taste becomes very doubtful when he takes to complimenting other people.

Charles Dickens

The men who learn endurance, are they who call the whole world, brother.

Charles Dickens

There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast.

Charles Dickens

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

Charles Dickens

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

Charles Dickens

There is prodigious strength in sorrow and despair.

Charles Dickens

To bring deserving things down by setting undeserving things up is one of its perverted delights; and there is no playing fast and loose with the truth, in any game, without growing the worse for it.

Charles Dickens

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.

Charles Dickens

I feel an earnest and humble desire, and shall do till I die, to increase the stock of harmless cheerfulness.

Charles Dickens

When a man bleeds inwardly, it is a dangerous thing for himself; but when he laughs inwardly, it bodes no good to other people.

Charles Dickens

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!

Charles Dickens

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.

Charles Dickens

To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart.

Charles Dickens

A word in earnest is as good as a speech.

Charles Dickens

I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free.

Charles Dickens

A day wasted on others is not wasted on one’s self.

Charles Dickens

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.

Charles Dickens

And can it be that in a world so full and busy the loss of one creature makes a void so wide and deep that nothing but the width and depth of eternity can fill it up!

Charles Dickens