Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it.

But I am sure that I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round…as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long...

The society of girls is a very delightful thing, Copperfield. It’s not professional, but it’s very delightful.

With a leer of mingled sweetness and slyness; with one eye on the future, one on the bride, and an arch expression in her face, partly spiritual, partly spirituous, and wholly professional and peculiar to...

That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its...

Mrs Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her clenliness more umcomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to godliness, and some people do the same by...

There was once a king, and he had a queen; and he was the manliest of his gender, and she was the loveliest of hers. They had nineteen children, and were always having more.

God bless us, every one!

We must leave the discovery of this mystery, like all others, to time, and accident, and Heaven’s pleasure.

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

He was simply and staunchly true to his duty alike in the large case and in the small. So all true souls ever are. So every true soul ever was, ever is, and ever will...

the mind is not at liberty to soar to any exalted form of expression. Still, it is a great pursuit! A great pursuit!

There might be some credit in being jolly.

Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea — on, on — until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the...

In this way they went on, and on, and on–in the language of the story-books–until at last the village lights appeared before them, and the church spire cast a long reflection on the graveyard grass;...

There is no deception now, Mr. Weller. Tears, said Job, with a look of momentary slyness, “tears are not the only proofs of distress, nor the best ones.”

He calls the knaves, Jacks, this boy! . . . And what coarse hands he has! And what thick boots!

All the housemaid hopes is, happiness for ’em – but marriage is a lottery, and the more she thinks about it, the more she feels the independence and the safety of a single life.

I pity his ignorance and despise him.

Oh, what a misfortune is mine, cried Bradley, breaking off to wipe the starting perspiration from his face as he shook from head to foot, “”that I cannot so control myself as to appear a...

It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humor

In love of home, the love of country has its rise

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

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

It is a dreadful thing to wait and watch for the approach of death; to know that hope is gone, and recovery impossible; and to sit and count the dreary hours through long, long, nights...

Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command: for this is thy dominion! But of the loved, revered, and honoured...

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.

Nevertheless, you shall not get the better of me. I am an Englishwoman.

Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism, are all very good words for the lips.

It is known, to the force of a single pound weight, what the engine will do; but, not all the calculators of the National Debt can tell me the capacity for good or evil, for...

But struggling with these better feelings was pride,–the vice of the lowest and most debased creatures no less than of the high and self-assured. The miserable companion of thieves and ruffians, the fallen outcast of...

My sister having so much to do, was going to church vicariously, that is to say, Joe and I were going.

There was not one straight floor from the foundation to the roof; the ceilings were so fantastically clouded by smoke and dust, that old woman might have told fortunes in them better than in grouts...

The bright old day now dawns again; the cry runs through the land, in England there shall be dear bread / in Ireland, sword and brand; and poverty, and ignorance, shall swell the rich and...

Can I unmoved see thee dying/ On a log,/ Expiring frog!

When you’re a married man, Samivel, you’ll understand a good many things as you don’t understand now; but whether it’s worth while, going through so much, to learn so little, as the charity-boy said when...

Of all the ruinous and desolate places my uncle had ever beheld, this was the most so. It looked as if it had once been a large house of entertainment; but the roof had fallen...

I am always conscious of an uncomfortable sensation now and then when the wind is blowing in the east.

If there were no bad people there would be no good lawyers

It was as true as taxes is. And nothing’s truer than them.

So now, as an infallible way of making little ease great ease, I began to contract a quantity of debt.

O you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger?

I wants to make your flesh creep.

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

But the windows of the house of Memory, and the windows of the house of Mercy, are not so easily closed as windows of glass and wood. They fly open unexpectedly; they rattle in the...

Perhaps second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, come easily off and on.

Never close your lips to those whom you have already opened your heart.

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

The day wore on, and all these bright colours subsided, and assumed a quieter tint, like young hopes softened down by time, or youthful features by degrees resolving into the calm and serenity of age....

Very strange things comes to our knowledge in families, miss; bless your heart, what you would think to be phenomenons, quite … Aye, and even in gen-teel families, in high families, in great families …...