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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 have had a good thing and lost it, or never to have had it?

Charles Dickens

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Charles Dickens
Age: 58 †
Born: 1812
Born: February 7
Died: 1870
Died: June 9
Author
Editor
Journalist
Novelist
Playwright
Social Critic
Writer
Landport
Hampshire
Dickens
C.Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens
Boz
Tell
Reminds
Better
Fairy
Thing
Brought
Good
Question
Never
Serious
Wise
Asks
Godmother
Lost
Fairies

More quotes by Charles Dickens

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Heaven above was blue, and earth beneath was green the river glistened like a path of diamonds in the sun the birds poured forth their songs from the shady trees the lark soared high above the waving corn and the deep buzz of insects filled the air.
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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.
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I'd lay down my life for her - Mas'r Davy - Oh! most content and cheerful! She's more to me - gent'lmen - than - she's all to me that ever I can want, and more than ever I - than ever I could say. I - I love her true. There ain't a gent'lman in all the land - nor yet sailing upon all the sea - that can love his lady more than I love her.
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But tears were not the things to find their way to Mr. Bumble’s soul his heart was waterproof. Like washable beaver hats that improve with rain, his nerves were rendered stouter and more vigorous, by showers of tears, which, being tokens of weakness, and so far tacit admissions of his own power, pleased and exalted him.
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The coffee was boiling over a charcoal fire, and large slices of bread and butter were piled one upon the other like deals in a lumber yard.
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At last, in the dead of the night, when the street was very still indeed, Little Dorrit laid the heavy head upon her bosom, and soothed her to sleep. And thus she sat at the gate, as it were alone looking up at the stars, and seeing the clouds pass over them in their wild flight-which was the dance at Little Dorrit's party.
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Tongue well that's a wery good thing when it an't a woman.
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My guiding star always is, Get hold of portable property.
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[She wasn't] a logically reasoning woman, but God is good, and hearts may count in heaven as high as heads.
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The civility which money will purchase, is rarely extended to those who have none.
Charles Dickens
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I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out.
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We must leave the discovery of this mystery, like all others, to time, and accident, and Heaven's pleasure.
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Their demeanor is invariably morose, sullen, clownish and repulsive. I should think there is not, on the face of the earth, a people so entirely destitute of humor, vivacity, or the capacity for enjoyment.
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Christmas time! That man must be a misanthrope indeed, in whose breast something like a jovial feeling is not roused - in whose mind some pleasant associations are not awakened - by the recurrence of Christmas.
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All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself. Surely a curious thing. That I should innocently take a bad half-crown of somebody else's manufacture, is reasonable enough but that I should knowingly reckon the spurious coin of my own make, as good money!
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There are very few moments in a man's existence when he experiences so much ludicrous distress, or meets with so little charitable commiseration, as when he is in pursuit of his own hat.
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-Why don't you cry again, you little wretch? -Because I'll never cry for you again.
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What an immense impression Paris made upon me. It is the most extraordinary place in the world!
Charles Dickens
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Poetry makes life what lights and music do the stage.
Charles Dickens
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I believe that the heaviest blow ever dealt at liberty's head will be dealt by this nation in the ultimate failure of its example to the earth.
Charles Dickens