Charles Dickens

I have made it a rule of my life to avoid all unnecessary contact with the world.

There are strings in the human heart that had better not be vibrated.

I am a gentleman. I have been a gentleman all my life.

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.

I have a great deal of the child in me, and that is why I love children.

The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.

I know enough of the world to know that there is nothing in it so bad as to be worth the trouble of speaking ill of.

I am not a man who has any great respect for the law, when the law is a ass.

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

I have been a-thinking, and I have been a-thinking, and I have been a-thinking, and I have come to the conclusion that I am a-thinking a good deal.

It is a very remarkable thing, that the very things which are most necessary are the very things that are most neglected.

I am a man who has always been very much in the habit of doing what he likes, and of not doing what he doesn't like.

There are some people who are always grumbling because roses have thorns; I am thankful that thorns have roses.

It is a most extraordinary, and at the same time a most natural, thing, that a man should be able to look back upon his life and see it as a whole.

I am a man who has lived a good deal in the world, and I have seen a good deal of it.

I have always been a great admirer of the wisdom of the ancients, and I have always been of the opinion that there is a great deal to be learned from them.

It is a principle of the human mind, that the more we have, the more we want.

I have always been of the opinion that it is better to be happy than to be rich, and that it is better to be good than to be great.

There are very few people, I imagine, who have not, at some time or other, been in love with some object or other.

I think that the best thing a man can do is to try to make the best of everything.