Little Dorrit Quotes

“He had a certain air of being a handsome man--which he was not; and a certain air of being a well-bred man--which he was not. It was mere swagger and challenge; but in this particular, as in many others, blustering assertion goes for proof, half over the world.”
― Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit: Volume 1

“He heard the thrill in her voice, he saw her earnest face, he saw her clear true eyes, he saw the quickened bosom that would have joyfully thrown itself before him to receive a mortal wound directed at his breast, with the dying cry, 'I love him!' and the remotest suspicion of the truth never dawned upon his mind.”
― Dickens, Charles

“It was an instinctive testimony to Little Dorrit's worth and difference from all the rest, that the poor young fellow honoured and loved her for being simply what she was.”
― Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit

“Refuge in any hiding-place from a sea too intensely blue to be looked at, and a sky of purple, set with one great flaming jewel of fire.”
― Charles Dickens

“...his genius, during his earlier manhood, was of that exclusively agricultural character which applies itself to the cultivation of wild oats.”
― Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870

“En zo, bij dag en bij nacht, onder zon en sterrenlicht, over heuvelen en door eenzame vlakten, over land en zee trekkend, gaande en komende zoals het lot wil, steeds andere mensen ontmoetend, zo trekken wij, rusteloze reizigers door de pelgrimstocht die het leven heet.”
― Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit: Volume 1

“And thus she sat at the gate, as it were alone; looking up at the stars, and seeing the clouds pass over them in their wild flight - which was the dance at Little Dorrit's party.”
― Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit

“We are--not younger,' said Clennam. After this wise remark he felt that he was scarcely shinning with brilliancy, and became aware that he was nervous."
-Little Dorrit, p.148”
― Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit

“Why should he be vexed or sore at heart? It was not his weakness that he had imagined. It was nobody's, nobody's within his knowledge; why should it trouble him? And yet it did trouble him. And he thought--who has not thought for a moment, sometimes?--that it might be better to flow away monotonously, like the river, and to compound for its insensibility to happiness with its insensibility to pain."
--Little Dorrit, p.197”
― Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit

“If Clennam had not decided against falling in love with Pet; if he had had the weakness to do it; if he had, little by little, persuaded himself to set all the earnestness of his nature, all the might of his hope, and all the wealth of his matured character, on that cast; if he had done this and found that all was lost; he would have been, that night, unutterably miserable. As it was---
As it was, the rain fell heavily, drearily."
--Little Dorrit, p.205-206”
― Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit

“Haggard anxiety and remorse are bad companions to be barred up with. Brooding all day, and resting very little indeed at night, will not arm a man against misery. Net morning, Clennam felt that his health was sinking, as his spirits had already sunk and that the weight under which he bent was bearing him down."
-p. 705, Little Dorrit”
― Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit

“All of which Flora said with so much headlong vehemence as if she really believed it. There is not much doubt that when she worked herself into full mermaid condition, she did actually believe whatever she said in it.”
― Dickens, Charles

“It was a Sunday evening in London, gloomy, close and stale. Maddening church bells of all degrees of dissonance, sharp and flat, cracked and clear, fast and slow, made the brick and mortar echoes hideous. Melancholy streets in a penitential garb of soot, steeped the souls of the people who were condemned to look at them out of windows, in a dire despondency. In every thoroughfare, up almost every alley, and down almost every turning, some doleful bell was throbbing, jerking, tolling, as if the Plague were in the city and the dead-carts were going round. Everything was bolted and barred that could by possibility furnish relief to an overworked people. No pictures, no unfamiliar animal, no rare plants or flowers, no natural or artificial wonders of the ancient world - all taboo with that enlightened strictness, that the ugly South sea gods in the British Museum might have supposed themselves at home again. Nothing to see but streets, streets, streets. Nothing to breathe but streets, streets, streets. Nothing to change the brooding mind, or raise it up. Nothing for the spent toiler to do, but to compare the monotony of his seventh day with the monotony of his six days, think what a weary life he led, and make the best of it - or the worst, according to the probabilities.”
― Charles Dickens

“...he tumbled into all kinds of difficulties, and tumbled out of them; and, by tumbling through life, got himself considerably bruised."
--Little Dorrit p. 140”
― Charles Dickens