Charles Dickens

There was a piece of ornamental water immediately below the parapet, on the other side, into which Mr. James Harthouse had a very strong inclination to pitch Mr. Thomas Gradgrind Junior.

You are hard at work madam ," said the man near her.Yes," Answered Madam Defarge ; " I have a good deal to do."What do you make, Madam ?"Many things."For instance ---"For instance," returned Madam Defarge , composedly ,Shrouds."The man moved a little further away, as soon as he could, feeling it mightily close and oppressive .

She was the most wonderful woman for prowling about the house. How she got from one story to another was a mystery beyond solution. A lady so decorous in herself, and so highly connected, was not to be suspected of dropping over the banisters or sliding down them, yet her extraordinary facility of locomotion suggested the wild idea.

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.

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.

He was always so zealous and honorable in fulfilling his compact with me, that he made me zealous and honorable in fulfilling mine with him. If he had shown indifference as a master, I have no doubt I should have returned the compliment as a pupil. He gave me no such excuse, and each of us did the other justice.

He couldn't be a doctor, or he would have a quieter and more persuasive manner.

I have a pretty large experience of boys, and you're a bad set of fellows. Now mind!

They ran their heads very hard against wrong ideas, and persisted in trying to fit the circumstances to the ideas instead of trying to extract ideas from the circumstances.

He had been educated in no habits of application and concentration. The system which had addressed him in exactly the same manner as it had addressed hundreds of other boys, all varying in character and capacity, had enabled him to dash through his tasks, always with fair credit and often with distinction, but in a fitful, dazzling way that had confirmed his reliance on those very qualities in himself which it had been most desirable to direct and train. They were good qualities, without which no high place can be meritoriously won, but like fire and water, though excellent servants, they were very bad masters. If they had been under Richard__ direction, they would have been his friends; but Richard being under their direction, they became his enemies.

I never heard that it had been anybody__ business to find out what his natural bent was, or where his failings lay, or to adapt any kind of knowledge to him. He had been adapted to the verses and had learnt the art of making them to such perfection. I did doubt whether Richard would not have profited by some one studying him a little, instead of his studying them quite so much.

Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts; nothing else will ever be of any service to them.

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.

So, I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.

I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free.

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

Charity begins at home, and justice begins next door.

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