Oliver Twist Quotes

“There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.”

“It is because I think so much of warm and sensitive hearts, that I would spare them from being wounded.”

Sudden shifts and changes are no bad preparation for political life.

We need be careful how we deal with those about us, when every death carries to some small circle of survivors, thoughts of so much omitted, and so little done.

The earth had donned her mantle of brightest green; and shed her richest perfumes abroad. It was the prime and vigour of the year; all things were glad and flourishing.

He looked like death; not death as it shows in shroud and coffin, but in the guise it wears when life has just departed; when a young and gentle spirit has, but an instant, fled to Heaven, and the gross air of the world has not had time to breathe upon the changing dust it hallowed.

Don’t be afraid! We won’t make an author of you, while there’s an honest trade to be learnt, or brick-making to turn to.

There is no remorse so deep as that which is unavailing; if we would be spared its tortures, let us remember this, in time.

It is a common thing for the countenances of the dead, even in that fixed and rigid state, to subside into the long-forgotten expression of sleeping infancy, and settle into the very look of early life; so calm, so peaceful, do they grow again, that those who knew them in their happy childhood, kneel by the coffin’s side in awe, and see the Angel even upon earth.

I confess I have yet to learn that a lesson of the purest good may not be drawn from the vilest evil.

Although the happiness and delight of my life lie buried there too, I have not made a coffin of my heart, and sealed it up for ever on my best affections. Deep affliction has only made them stronger; it ought, I think, for it should refine our nature.

People like us don’t go out at night cause people like them see us for what we are.

There is a drowsy state, between sleeping and waking, when you dream more in five minutes with your eyes half open, and yourself half conscious of everything that is passing around you, than you would in five nights with your eyes fast closed, and your senses wrapt in perfect unconsciousness.

The earth had donned her mantle of brightest green; and shed her richest perfumes abroad. It was the prime and vigour of the year; all things were glad and flourishing.

And what an example of the power of dress young Oliver Twist was!

Dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine.