“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.”
― Charles Dickens, quote from A Christmas Carol
“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.”
― Charles Dickens, quote from A Christmas Carol
“You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell me why?"
"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.”
― Charles Dickens, quote from A Christmas Carol
“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!”
― Charles Dickens, quote from A Christmas Carol
“No space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused”
― Charles Dickens, quote from A Christmas Carol
“For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.”
― Charles Dickens, quote from A Christmas Carol
“You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”
― Charles Dickens, quote from A Christmas Carol
“They are Man's and they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance and this girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.”
― Charles Dickens, quote from A Christmas Carol
“Old Marley was as dead as a doornail.
Mind! I don't mean to say that, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a doornail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a doornail.”
― Charles Dickens, quote from A Christmas Carol
“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,' returned the nephew. 'Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”
― Charles Dickens, quote from A Christmas Carol
“There are some upon this earth of yours who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name; who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.”
― Charles Dickens, quote from A Christmas Carol
“But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,' faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.
Business!' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The deals of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
― Charles Dickens, quote from A Christmas Carol
“And it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!”
― Charles Dickens, quote from A Christmas Carol
“Marley was dead: to begin with.”
― Charles Dickens, quote from A Christmas Carol
“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 from A Christmas Carol
“Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
― Charles Dickens, quote from A Christmas Carol
“Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years it was a splendid laugh!”
― Charles Dickens, quote from A Christmas Carol
“Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. "But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change.”
― Charles Dickens, quote from A Christmas Carol
“I don't know what to do!" cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoön of himself with his stockings. "I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school-boy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to every-body! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!”
― Charles Dickens, quote from A Christmas Carol
“And how did little Tim behave?” asked Mrs Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart’s content.
“As good as gold,” said Bob, “and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.”
― Charles Dickens, quote from A Christmas Carol
“It is required of every man," the ghost returned, "that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and, if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death.”
― Charles Dickens, quote from A Christmas Carol
“If they would rather die, . . . they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
― Charles Dickens, quote from A Christmas Carol
“And therefore, Uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that [Christmas] has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”
― Charles Dickens, quote from A Christmas Carol
“He was consious of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares, long, long, forgotten.”
― Charles Dickens, quote from A Christmas Carol
“You fear the world too much,' she answered gently. 'All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off, one by one, until the master passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?”
― Charles Dickens, quote from A Christmas Carol
“Marley was dead, to begin with ... This must be distintly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.”
― Charles Dickens, quote from A Christmas Carol
“Come in, -- come in! and know me better, man! I am the Ghost of Christmas Present. Look upon me! You have never seen the like of me before!”
― Charles Dickens, quote from A Christmas Carol
“Man," said the Ghost, "if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die?”
― Charles Dickens, quote from A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens
Born place: in Portsmouth, England
Born date February 7, 1812
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“Each dog marks a section of our lives, and in the end, we feed them to the dark, burying them there while we carry on.”
― Toby Barlow, quote from Sharp Teeth
“Marriage as it should be... two individuals loving the other more than they cared for themselves. Giving and giving until theoretically they should be empty, yet always invigorated with more to give.”
― Sharon Lathan, quote from Loving Mr. Darcy: Journeys Beyond Pemberley
“You don't need the makeup."
Sabrina felt like her face is on fire. He knew about her late-night beauty sessions. And, if she had heard him correctly, he was also admitting that he thought she was pretty. She looks over at him and found he was looking at her.
"I kind of wish I hadn't said that," he said.
"Me, too," she replied.
"Would it help if I said you were stinky, muck-covered toad-face?"
Sabrina nodded and edged as far away as she could on the trampoline. Puck did the same.”
― Michael Buckley, quote from Tales From the Hood
“You who so plod amid serious things that you feel it shame to give yourself up even for a few short moments to mirth and joyousness in the land of Fancy; you who think that life hath not to do with innocent laughter that can harm no one; these pages are not for you.”
― Howard Pyle, quote from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
“But she'd wanted him there and there he was. A lamb ready for slaughter.”
― Cecily von Ziegesar, quote from You Know You Love Me
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The Basketball Diari...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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