Charles Dickens

I am not a great admirer of the English legal system.

I have a great contempt for all forms of religious bigotry.

I never could have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one subject at a time.

My advice is, never do to-morrow what you can do to-day. Procrastination is the thief of time.

It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled.

He was a good-looking man, and a good-for-nothing man.

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 epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

Reflect upon your present blessings—of which every man has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.

I have been so beset, and so worried, and so torn by the anxiety of this new book, that I have been made ill by it.

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it for someone else.

The whole world is a great big satisfying thing.

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 humour.

He had a head of hair that was like a wig, and a face that was like a mask.

I am a man of the world, and I know what the world is.

Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule, rather than the exception.

Charity begins at home, and justice begins next door.

Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.

The law is a ass—a idiot.

Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.

He was a man of the world, in the worst sense of the term.