We are a bed business, and a coffee-room business. We are not a general dining business, nor do we wish it. In consequence, when diners drop in, we know what to give ’em as will...

I know enough of the world now to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything

The great principle of out-of-door relief is, to give the paupers exactly what they don’t want; and then they get tired of coming.

When she spoke, Tom held his breath, so eagerly he listened; when she sang, he sat like one entranced. She touched his organ, and from that bright epoch even it, the old companion of his...

*I love climbing mountains in all fields (Whatever was this fields).*I love tranquility and it is more for me precious than money.*Honesty is a few valuable nowadays.after willing of God and Step by step with...

Lawyers hold that there are two kinds of particularly bad witnesses–a reluctant witness, and a too-willing witness.

There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate.

Ain’t I volatile?

It was not a bosom to repose upon, but it was a capital bosom to hang jewels upon.

I do not know the American gentleman, God forgive me for putting two such words together.

The mistake was made of putting some of the trouble out of King Charles’s head into my head.

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!

Train up a fig-tree in the way it should go, and when you are old sit under the shade of it.

The first rule of business is: Do other men for they would do you.

At last, however, he began to think — as you or I would have thought at first; for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done...

We are so very ‘umble.

Let us take heed how we laugh without reason, lest we cry with it.

There are some upon this earth of yours who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name; who are as strange...

Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape.

He had been educated in no habits of application and concentration. The system which had addressed him in exactly the same manner as it had addressed hundreds of other boys, all varying in character and...

We went our several ways,” said Lady Dedlock, “and had little in common even before we agreed to differ. It is to be regretted, I suppose, but it could not be helped.

[…] certain it is that minds, like bodies, will often fall into a pimpled ill-conditioned state from mere excess of comfort, and like them, are often successfully cured by remedies in themselves very nauseous and...

He was too well accustomed to suffering, and had suffered too much where he was, to bewail the prospect of change very severely.

Calamity with us, is made an excuse for doing wrong. With them, it is erected into a reason for their doing right. This is really the justice of rich to poor, and I protest against...

The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself. There is no other principle distinctly, certainly, and consistently maintained through all its narrow turnings. Viewed by this light it becomes...

Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own; and from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, it is but a succession of changes so gentle and easy...

But, for all that, they had a very pleasant walk. The trees were bare of leaves, and the river was bare of water-lilies; but the sky was not bare of its beautiful blue, and the...

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness . . . it was the spring of hope, it was...

This reminds me, Godmother, to ask you a serious question. You are as wise as wise can be (having been brought up by the fairies), and you can tell me this: Is it better to...

Uriah, with his long hands slowly twining over one another, made a ghastly writhe from the waist upwards.

Yes! you are the ruin–the ruin–the ruin–of me. I have no resources in myself, I have no confidence in myself, I have no government of myself when you are near me or in my thoughts....

The sergeant was describing a military life. It was all drinking, he said, except that there were frequent intervals of eating and love making.

She is come at last – at last – and all is gas and gaiters!

Then idiots talk, said Eugene, leaning back, folding his arms, smoking with his eyes shut, and speaking slightly through his nose, “”of Energy. If there is a word in the dictionary under any letter from...

Let us be moral. Let us contemplate existence.

He did each single thing as if he did nothing else

I believe no satirist could breathe this air. If another Juvenal or Swift could rise up among us tomorrow, he would be hunted down. If you have any knowledge of our literature, and can give...

We forge the chains we wear in life.

And here you see me working out, as cheerfully and thankfully as I may, my doom of sharing in the glass a constant change of customers, and of lying down and rising up with the...

All was over in a moment. I had fulfilled my destiny. I was a captive and a slave. I loved Dora Spenlow to distraction! She was more than human to me. She was a Fairy,...

The boy was lying, fast asleep, on a rude bed upon the floor; so pale with anxiety, and sadness, and the closeness of his prison, that he looked like death; not death as it shews...

Those darling byegone times, Mr Carker,’ said Cleopatra, ‘with their delicious fortresses, and their dear old dungeons, and their delightful places of torture, and their romantic vengeances, and their picturesque assaults and sieges, and everything...

[…] There are tales among us that you have sold yourself to the devil, and I know not what.”We all have, have we not?’ returned the stranger, looking up. ‘If we were fewer in number,...

…I hope that simple love and truth will be strong in the end. I hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil or misfortune in the world.

…lies is lies. Howsever they come, they didn’t ought to come, and they come from the father of lies, work round to the same.

Gradually, he fell into that deep tranquil sleep which ease from recent suffering alone imparts; that calm and peaceful rest which it is pain to wake from. Who, if this were death, would be roused...

A man would die tonight of lying out on the marshes, I thought. And then I looked at the stars, and considered how awful it would be for a man to turn his face up...

The privileges of the side-table included the small prerogatives of sitting next to the toast, and taking two cups of tea to other people’s one.

There were times when he could not read the face he had studied so long, and when this lonely girl was a greater mystery to him than any women of the world…

Whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do it well; whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself completely; in great aims and in...