Oh the nerves, the nerves; the mysteries of this machine called man! Oh the little that unhinges it, poor creatures that we are!
Charles Dickens

I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don't trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it.
Charles Dickens

Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism, are all very good words for the lips.
Charles Dickens

'Do you spell it with a 'V' or a 'W'?' inquired the judge. 'That depends upon the taste and fancy of the speller, my Lord'.
Charles Dickens

A person who can't pay gets another person who can't pay to guarantee that he can pay. Like a person with two wooden legs getting another person with two wooden legs to guarantee that he has got two natural legs. It don't make either of them able to do a walking-match.
Charles Dickens

Dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine.
Charles Dickens

The civility which money will purchase, is rarely extended to those who have none.
Charles Dickens

Regrets are the natural property of grey hairs.
Charles Dickens

This is a world of action, and not for moping and droning in.
Charles Dickens

It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations.
Charles Dickens

The first rule of business is: Do other men for they would do you.
Charles Dickens

That sort of half sigh, which, accompanied by two or three slight nods of the head, is pity's small change in general society.
Charles Dickens

It's my old girl that advises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained.
Charles Dickens

Renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly.
Charles Dickens

Little Red Riding Hood was my first love. I felt that if I could have married Little Red Riding Hood, I should have known perfect bliss.
Charles Dickens

The one great principle of English law is to make business for itself.
Charles Dickens

Although a skillful flatterer is a most delightful companion if you have him all to yourself, his taste becomes very doubtful when he takes to complimenting other people.
Charles Dickens