A Tale of Two Cities Quotes

“A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.”

“You have been the last dream of my soul.”

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

“A day wasted on others is not wasted on one’s self.”

“There is prodigious strength in sorrow and despair.”

I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss. I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy. I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.

Think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you.

A multitude of people and yet a solitude.

A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it.

Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule.

Nothing that we do, is done in vain. I believe, with all my soul, that we shall see triumph.

The cloud of caring for nothing, which overshadowed him with such a fatal darkness, was very rarely pierced by the light within him.

He knew enough of the world to know that there is nothing in it better than the faithful service of the heart.

Perhaps second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, come easily off and on.

A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!

So does a whole world, with all its greatnesses and littlenesses, lie in a twinkling star. And as mere human knowledge can split a ray of light and analyse the manner of its composition, so, sublimer intelligences may read in the feeble shining of this earth of ours, every thought and act, every vice and virtue, of every responsible creature on it.

“You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer,” said Miss Pross, in her breathing. “Nevertheless, you shall not get the better of me. I am an Englishwoman.”

I would ask you to believe that he has a heart he very, very seldom reveals, and that there are deep wounds in it. My dear, I have seen it bleeding.

“I have sometimes sat alone here of an evening, listening, until I have made the echoes out to be the echoes of all the footsteps that are coming by and by into our lives.”

Detestation of the high is the involuntary homage of the low.

When the time comes, let loose a tiger and a devil; but wait for the time with the tiger and the devil chained -not shown- yet always ready.

Good never come of such evil, a happier end was not in nature to so unhappy a beginning.

It was the popular theme for jests; it was the best cure for headache, it infallibly prevented the hair from turning grey, it imparted a particular delicacy to the complexion, it was the National Razor which shaved close: who kissed La Guillotine, looked through the little window and sneezed into the sack. It was the sign of the regeneration of the human race. It superseded the Cross. Models of it were worn on breasts from which the Cross was discarded, and it was bowed down to and believed in where the Cross was denied.

“Then tell the Wind and Fire where to stop, but don’t tell me.”

Death may beget life, but oppression can beget nothing other than itself.