Nicholas Nickleby Quotes

When men are about to commit, or to sanction the commission of some injustice, it is not uncommon for them to express pity for the object either of that or some parallel proceeding, and to feel themselves, at the time, quite virtuous and moral, and immensely superior to those who express no pity at all. This is a kind of upholding of faith above works, and is very comfortable.

There are only two styles of portrait painting; the serious and the smirk.

There are not a few among the disciples of charity who require, in their vocation, scarcely less excitement than the votaries of pleasure in theirs.

There are many pleasant fictions of the law in constant operation, but there is not one so pleasant or practically humorous as that which supposes every man to be of equal value in its impartial eye, and the benefits of all laws to be equally attainable by all men, without the smallest reference to the furniture of their pockets.

The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.

Subdue your appetites, my dears, and you’ve conquered human nature.

May not the complaint, that common people are above their station, often take its rise in the fact of uncommon people being below theirs?

It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, and furnishes a complete answer to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the human species, that every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last.

It is a hopeless endeavour to attract people to a theatre unless they can be first brought to believe that they will never get into it.

Gold conjures up a mist about a man, more destructive of all his old senses and lulling to his feelings than the fumes of charcoal.

For nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own; and from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, is but a succession of changes so gentle and easy, that we can scarcely mark their progress.

Dreams are the bright creatures of poem and legend, who sport on earth in the night season, and melt away in the first beam of the sun, which lights grim care and stern reality on their daily pilgrimage through the world.