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"The great grindstone, Earth, had turned when Mr. Lorry looked out again, and the sun was red on the courtyard. But, the lesser grindstone stood alone there in the calm morning air, with red upon it that the sun had never give, and would never take away."
"Whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do it well; whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself completely; in great aims and in small I have always thoroughly been in earnest."
"The New Year, like an Infant Heir to the whole world, was waited for, with welcomes, presents, and rejoicings."
"Champagne is simply one of the elegant extras of life."
"There is a Sunday conscience as well as a Sunday coat; and those who make religion a secondary concern put the coat and conscience carefully by to put on only once a week."
"While the flowers, pale and unreal in the moonlight, floated away upon the river; and thus do greater things that once were in our breasts, and near our hearts, flow from us to the eternal sea."
"Poverty and oysters always seem to go together."
"Mankind was my business... charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business."
"My dear if you could give me a cup of tea to clear my muddle of a head I should better understand your affairs."
"The dew seemed to sparkle more brightly on the green leaves the air to rustle among them with a sweeter music and the sky itself to look more blue and bright. Such is the influence which the condition of our own thoughts, exercise, even over the appearance of external objects."
"And O there are days in this life, worth life and worth death."
"A silent look of affection and regard when all other eyes are turned coldly away-the consciousness that we possess the sympathy and affection of one being when all others have deserted us-is a hold, a stay, a comfort, in the deepest affliction, which no wealth could purchase, or power bestow."
"So new to him," she muttered, "so old to me; so strange to him, so familiar to me; so melancholy to both of us!"
"I don't like that sort of school... where the bright childish imagination is utterly discouraged... where I have never seen among the pupils, whether boys or girls, anything but little parrots and small calculating machines."
"The unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I love her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection."
"and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not forty children conducting themselves as one, but every child was conducting itself like forty."
"Other sound than the owl's voice there was none, save the falling of a fountain into its stone basin; for, it was one of those dark nights that hold their breath by the hour together, and then heave a long low sigh, and hold their breath again."
"I made a compact with myself that in my person literature should stand by itself, of itself, and for itself."
"The cramped monotony of my existence grinds me away by the grain."
"When we have done our very, very best, papa, and that is not enough, then I think the right time must have come for asking help of others."