The collection / 499 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01c. 1841 AD

I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul.

Charles Dickens / quote

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02c. 1841 AD

‎And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire.

Charles Dickens / quote

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03c. 1841 AD

The unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I love her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection.

Charles Dickens / quote

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04c. 1841 AD

Before I go," he said, and paused -- "I may kiss her?"It was remembered afterwards that when he bent down and touched her face with his lips, he murmured some words. The child, who was nearest to him, told them afterwards, and told her grandchildren when she was a handsome old lady, that she heard him say, "A life you love.

Charles Dickens / quote

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05c. 1841 AD

A man is lucky if he is the first love of a woman. A woman is lucky if she is the last love of a man.

Charles Dickens / quote

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06c. 1841 AD

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.

Charles Dickens / quote

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07c. 1841 AD

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 course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.

Charles Dickens / quote

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08c. 1841 AD

The most important thing in life is to stop saying 'I wish' and start saying 'I will.' Consider nothing impossible, then treat possiblities as probabilities.

Charles Dickens / quote

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09c. 1841 AD

And a beautiful world we live in, when it is possible, and when many other such things are possible, and not only possible, but done-- done, see you!-- under that sky there, every day.

Charles Dickens / quote

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10c. 1841 AD

There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.

Charles Dickens / quote

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11c. 1841 AD

Mr Lorry asks the witness questions:Ever been kicked? Might have been.Frequently? No. Ever kicked down stairs? Decidedly not; once received a kick at the top of a staircase, and fell down stairs of his own accord.

Charles Dickens / quote

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12c. 1841 AD

Never say never

Charles Dickens / quote

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13c. 1841 AD

I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me.

Charles Dickens / quote

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14c. 1841 AD

Some conjurers say that number three is the magic number, and some say number seven. It's neither my friend, neither. It's number one. (Fagin)

Charles Dickens / quote

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15c. 1841 AD

[She wasn't] a logically reasoning woman, but God is good, and hearts may count in heaven as high as heads.

Charles Dickens / quote

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16c. 1841 AD

There is a wisdom of the head, and... there is a wisdom of the heart.

Charles Dickens / quote

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17c. 1841 AD

Dreams are the bright creatures of poem and legend, who sport on earth in the night season, and melt away in the first beam of the sun, which lights grim care and stern reality on their daily pilgrimage through the world.

Charles Dickens / quote

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18c. 1841 AD

[T]he wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile.

Charles Dickens / quote

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19c. 1841 AD

Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.

Charles Dickens / quote

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20c. 1841 AD

He went to the church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and for, and patted the children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of homes, and up to the windows, and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed of any walk, that anything, could give him so much happiness. (p. 119)

Charles Dickens / quote

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21c. 1841 AD

I never had one hour's happiness in her society, and yet my mind all round the four-and-twenty hours was harping on the happiness of having her with me unto death.

Charles Dickens / quote

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22c. 1841 AD

The two stand in the fast-thinning throng of victims, but they speak as if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, heart to heart, these two children of the Universal Mother, else so wide apart and differing, have come together on the dark highway, to repair home together and to rest in her bosom.

Charles Dickens / quote

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23c. 1841 AD

In a word, it was impossible for me to separate her, in the past or in the present, from the innermost life of my life.

Charles Dickens / quote

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24c. 1841 AD

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 in shroud and coffin, but in the guise it wears when life has just departed; when a young and gentle spirit has, but an instant, fled to Heaven: and the gross air of the world has not had time to breathe upon the changing dust it hallowed.

Charles Dickens / quote

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