Great Expectations Important Quotes:

There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did. To the best of my belief, our case was in the last respect a rather common one.

- Charles Dickens

source: Charles Dickens (1983). “Great Expectations”

topic: Gay, Skeletons, Expectations, Great Expectations Important

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.

- Charles Dickens

topic: Taken, Two, Together, Great Expectations, Great Expectations Important

it is a principle of his that no man who was not a true gentleman at heart, ever was, since the world began, a true gentleman in manner. He says, no varnish can hide the grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself.

- Charles Dickens

source: Charles Dickens (2016). “British Classics: Great Expectations”, p.148, The Planet

topic: Heart, Men, Expectations, True Gentleman, Great Expectations Important

We were equals afterwards, as we had been before; but, afterwards at quiet times when I sat looking at Joe and thinking about him, I had a new sensation of feeling conscious that I was looking up to Joe in my heart.

- Charles Dickens

source: Charles Dickens (1881). “Great Expectations”, p.70

topic: Heart, Thinking, Expectations, Quiet Time, Great Expectations

Ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies.

- Charles Dickens

source: Charles Dickens (2015). “Great Expectations”, p.14, Booklassic

topic: Lying, Deceit, Literature, Great Expectations Important

All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself. Surely a curious thing. That I should innocently take a bad half-crown of somebody else's manufacture, is reasonable enough; but that I should knowingly reckon the spurious coin of my own make, as good money!

- Charles Dickens

topic: Self, Words Of Wisdom, Crowns, Swindlers, Swindling

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.

- Charles Dickens

topic: Summer, Nature, Spring, March Poems, Spring Day

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

source: Charles Dickens (2010). “A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations (Oprah's Book Club): Two Novels”, p.411, Penguin

topic: Way In Life, Expectations, Romance, Great Expectations, Great Expectations Important

Some medical beast had revived tar-water in those days as a fine medicine, and Mrs. Joe always kept a supply of it in the cupboard; having a belief in its virtues correspondent to its nastiness. At the best of times, so much of this elixir was administered to me as a choice restorative, that I was conscious of going about, smelling like a new fence.

- Charles Dickens

source: Charles Dickens (1861). “Great Expectations”, p.18

topic: Funny, Humorous, Medicine, Cupboards, Nastiness

Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before--more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.

- Charles Dickens

topic: Sorry, Rain, Heart, Moving On After Breakup, Our Condolences

It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home.

- Charles Dickens

source: 'Great Expectations' (1861) ch. 14

topic: Home, Expectations, Words Of Wisdom, Great Expectations Important

We spent as much money as we could and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us. We were always more or less miserable, and most of our acquaintance were in the same condition. There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did. To the best of my belief, our case was in the last aspect a rather common one.

- Charles Dickens

source: Charles Dickens (2012). “Great Expectations Thrift Study Edition”, p.215, Courier Corporation

topic: Funny, Money, Humorous, Great Expectations Important

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

topic: Flower, Memorable, Thinking, Great Expectations Important

. . . 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

topic: Healing, Order, Mind, Miss Havisham, Great Expectations

Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule.

- Charles Dickens

topic: Wisdom, Looks, Investing, Supervision, Great Expectations

I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so, the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.

- Charles Dickens

source: Great Expectations ch. 59 (1862 ed.)

topic: Morning, Light, Long Ago, Morning Mist, Expanse

It would have been cruel in Miss Havisham, horribly cruel, to practise on the susceptibility of a poor boy, and to torture me through all these years with a vain hope and an idle pursuit, if she had reflected on the gravity of what she did. But I think she did not. I think that in the endurance of her own trial, she forgot mine, Estella.

- Charles Dickens

source: Charles Dickens (2009). “The Complete Works of Charles Dickens: Great Expectations”, p.343, Cosimo, Inc.

topic: Boys, Thinking, Years, Miss Havisham, Susceptibility

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

source: Charles Dickens (1881). “Great Expectations”, p.61

topic: Inspirational, Expectations, Morality, Great Expectations Important

So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise.

- Charles Dickens

source: Charles Dickens (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Charles Dickens (Illustrated)”, p.7278, Delphi Classics

topic: People, Expectations, Words Of Wisdom, Great Expectations, Great Expectations Important

I was always treated as if I had insisted on being born, in opposition to the dictates of reason, religion, and morality, and against the dissuadinig arguments of my best friends.

- Charles Dickens

source: 1860-1 Pip. Great Expectations, ch.4.

topic: Funny, Humorous, Expectations, Miss Havisham, Great Expectations Important

My guiding star always is, Get hold of portable property.

- Charles Dickens

source: Charles Dickens (2009). “The Complete Works of Charles Dickens: Great Expectations”, p.190, Cosimo, Inc.

topic: Stars, Great Expectations, Property, Great Expectations Important, Guiding Stars

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.

- Charles Dickens

topic: Children, Parenting, World, Injustice In The World, Great Expectations Important

Life is made of ever so many partings welded together.

- Charles Dickens

topic: Life, Saying Goodbye, Together, Great Expectations, Great Expectations Important

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

source: Charles Dickens (2012). “Great Expectations Thrift Study Edition”, p.236, Courier Corporation

topic: Love, Expectations, Mind, One Hour, Great Expectations Important

Her contempt for me was so strong, that it became infectious, and I caught it.

- Charles Dickens

source: Charles Dickens (1873). “Tale of Two Cities”, p.275

topic: Strong, Great Expectations, Caught, Great Expectations Important

It 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 stands as many hands high, according to scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter.

- Charles Dickens

source: Charles Dickens (1861). “Great Expectations”, p.86

topic: Horse, Children, Hands, Many Hands, World Is Small

It was understood that nothing of a tender nature could possibly be confided to old Barley, by reason of his being totally unequal to the consideration of any subject more psychological than gout, rum, and purser's stores.

- Charles Dickens

topic: Character, Interesting, Gout, Interesting Characters, Barley

Now, I return to this young fellow. And the communication I have got to make is, that he has great expectations.

- Charles Dickens

source: Great Expectations ch. 18 (1861)

topic: Inspirational, Communication, Expectations, Great Expectations Important

... Take another glass of wine, and excuse my mentioning that society as a body does not expect one to be so strictly conscientious in emptying one's glass, as to turn it bottom upwards with the rim on one's nose.

- Charles Dickens

source: Charles Dickens (1861). “Great Expectations”, p.65

topic: Funny, Humorous, Wine, Rims, Great Expectations Important

And could I look upon her without compassion, seeing her punishment in the ruin she was, in her profound unfitness for this earth on which she was placed, in the vanity of sorrow which had become a master mania, like the vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, the vanity of unworthiness, and other monstrous vanities that have been curses in this world?

- Charles Dickens

source: Charles Dickens (2015). “Dickens Ultimate Christmas Collection: The Greatest Stories & Novels for Christmas Time: A Christmas Carol, Doctor Marigold, Oliver Twist, Tom Tiddler's Ground, The Holly-Tree and more (Illustrated): The Best Loved Christmas Classics in One Volume”, p.3513, e-artnow

topic: Compassion, Punishment, Vanity, Mania, Penitence