Quotes From "Great Expectations" By Charles Dickens

Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since — on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made, are not more real, or more impossible to displace with your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation I associate you only with the good, and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you! . Charles Dickens

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

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

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

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

Mrs Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her clenliness more umcomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to godliness, and some people do the same by their religion. Charles Dickens

Mrs. Joe war eine sehr reinliche Hausfrau, doch sie verstand sich ausnehmend gut darauf, ihre Reinlichkeit bequemer und unerträglicher zu machen, als jeder Schmutz gewesen wäre. Die Reinlichkeit ist der Gottesfurcht verwandt, und manche verfahren mit ihrer Religion ganz genauso. Charles Dickens

The miserable man was a man of that confined stolidity of mind that he could not discuss my prospects without having me before him. Charles Dickens

She led me to believe we will going fast because her thoughts were going fast. Charles Dickens

It was not because I had a strong sense of the virtue of industry, but because Joe had a strong sense of the virtue of industry, that I worked with tolerable zeal against the grain. Charles Dickens

It can't be supposed, " said Joe. "Tho' I'm oncommon fond of reading, too." Are you, Joe?"Oncommon. Give me, " said Joe, "a good book, or a good newspaper, and sit me down afore a good fire, and I ask no better. Lord! " he continued, after rubbing his knees a little, "when you do come to a J and a O, and says you, 'Here, at last, is a J-O, Joe, ' how interesting reading is! Charles Dickens

I assumed my first undivided responsibility. Charles Dickens

It is the most miserable thing to feel ashamed at home. Charles Dickens

Old Barley might be as old as thee hills, and might swear like a whole field of troopers, but there were redeeming youth and trust and hope enough in Chinks's Basin to fill it to overflowing. Charles Dickens

.. . in seclusion, she had secluded herself from a thousand natural and healing influences; that, her mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do and must and will that reverse the appointed order of their Maker .. . Charles Dickens

Put the case that he lived in an atmosphere of evil, and that all he saw of children was their being generated in great numbers for certain destruction. Put the case that he often saw children solemnly tried at a criminal bar, where they were held up to be seen; put the case that he habitually knew of their being imprisoned, whipped, transported, neglected, cast out, qualified in all ways for the hangman, and growing up to be hanged. Put the case that pretty nigh all the children he saw in his daily business life he had reason to look upon as so much spawn, to develop into the fish that were to come to his net, ——to be prosecuted, defended, forsworn, made orphans, bedevilled somehow. Charles Dickens

There have been occasions in my later life (I suppose as in most lives) when I have felt for a time as if a thick curtain had fallen on all its interest and romance, to shut me out from anything save dull endurance any more. Never has that curtain dropped so heavy and blank, as when my way in life lay stretched out straight before me through the newly-entered road of apprenticeship to Joe. Charles Dickens

There have been occasions in my later life (I suppose in most lives) when I have felt for a time as if a thick curtain had fallen on all interest in romance, to shut me out from anything save dull endurance. Charles Dickens

When I went out, light of day seemed a darker color than when I went in. Charles Dickens

I resolved to tell my guardian that I doubted Orlick being the right sort of man to fill a post of trust at Miss Havisham’s. ‘Why of course he is not the right sort of man, Pip, ’ said my guardian, comfortably satisfied beforehand on the general head, ‘because the man who fills the post of trust never is the right sort of man. Charles Dickens

You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since--on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made, are not more real, or more impossible to be displaced by your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation I associate you only with the good, and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. O God Bless you, God forgive you! . Charles Dickens

There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth. Charles Dickens

In the little world in which children have their existence whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice. He may be only small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child is small, and its world is small, and its rocking-horse stance as many hands high according to scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter. Charles Dickens

Who am I, for God's sake, that I should be kind! Charles Dickens

He cross-examined his very wine when he had nothing else at hand. Charles Dickens

It was evident that he had nothing around him but the simplest necessaries, for everything that I remarked upon turned out to have been sent in on my account.... Yet, having already made his fortune in his own mind, he was so unassuming with it that I felt quite grateful to him for not being puffed up. Charles Dickens

After that, he drank all the rest of the sherry, and Mr. Hubble drank the port, and the two talked (which I have since observed to be customary in such cases) as if they were of quite another race from the deceased, and were notoriously immortal. Charles Dickens

Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt kept an evening school in the village; that is to say, she was a ridiculous old woman of limited means and unlimited infirmity, who used to go to sleep from six to seven every evening, in the society of youth who paid two pence per week each, for the improving opportunity of seeing her do it. Charles Dickens

Whatsume'er the failings on his part, Remember reader he were that good in his hart. Charles Dickens

He wouldn't hear of anybody's paying taxes, though he was very patriotic. Charles Dickens

In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong. Charles Dickens

It is not possible to know how far the influence of any amiable, honest-hearted duty-doing man flies out into the world, but it is very possible to know how it has touched one's self in going by, and I know right well that any good that intermixed itself with my apprenticeship came of plain contented Joe, and not of restlessly aspiring discontented me. Charles Dickens

...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. Charles Dickens

Brag is a good dog, but Holdfast is a better. Charles Dickens

I work pretty hard for a sufficient living, and therefore — yes, I do well. Charles Dickens

It is the most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home. Charles Dickens

There's one thing you may be sure of, Pip, " said Joe, after some rumination, "namely, that lies is lies. Howsever they come, they didn't ought to come, and they come from the father of lies, and work round to the same. Don't you tell no more of 'em, Pip. That ain't the way to get out of being common, old chap. And as to being common, I don't make it out at all clear. You are oncommon in some things. You're oncommon small. Likewise you're a oncommon scholar."" No, I am ignorant and backward, Joe.""Why, see what a letter you wrote last night! Wrote in print even! I've seen letters—— Ah! and from gentlefolks! ——that I'll swear weren't wrote in print, " said Joe."I have learnt next to nothing, Joe. You think much of me. It's only that."" Well, Pip, " said Joe, "be it so or be it son't, you must be a common scholar afore you can be a oncommon one, I should hope!. Charles Dickens

The kind of submission or resignation that he showed, was that of a man who was tired out. I sometimes derived an impression, from his manner or from a whispered word or two which escaped him, that he pondered over the question whether he might have a better man under better circumstances. But he never justified himself by a hint tending that way, or tried to bend the past out of its eternal shape. It happened on two or three occasions in my presence, that his desperate reputation was alluded to by one or other of the people in attendance on him. A smile crossed his face then, and he turned his eyes on me with a trustful look, as if he were confident that I had seen some small redeeming touch in him, even so long ago as when I was a little child. As to all the rest, he was humble and contrite, and I never knew him complain. Charles Dickens