Meaningful Quotes
Love
Love Never Fails
“You are part my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then.”
“When you say you love me, I know what you mean, as a form of words, but nothing more.”
“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.”
“I stole her heart and put ice in its place.” “Better to have left her a natural heart, even to be bruised or broken.”
“Do you know what I touch here?” “Your heart.” “Broken!”
“Break their hearts my pride and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy!”
“I loved her against reason, promise, peace, hope, happiness and all discouragement that could be.”
“I took her into this wretched breast when it was first bleeding from its stabs.”
“Love her! Love her! Love her! How does she use you?”
“For he gave me a look that I did not understand, and it all passed in a moment. But if he had looked at me for an hour, or a day, I could not have remembered his face ever afterwards, as having been more attentive.”
“Well, I thought I overheard Miss Havisham answer- only it seemed so unlikely- 'Well, you can break his heart.'”
“…'For I have seen you give him looks and smiles this very night, such as you never give to me.' 'Do you want me then,' said Estella, turning suddenly with a fixed and serious, if not angry, look, 'to deceive and entrap you?' 'Do you deceive and entrap him Estella?' 'Yes, and many others-all of them but you.'”
“You must know I have no heart… Oh! I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I have no doubt and, of course, if it ceased to beat I should cease to be. But you know what I mean. I have no softness there, no sympathy – sentiment - nonsense.”
“When you say you love me, I know what you mean, as a form of words, but nothing more.”
“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.”
“I stole her heart and put ice in its place.” “Better to have left her a natural heart, even to be bruised or broken.”
“Do you know what I touch here?” “Your heart.” “Broken!”
“Break their hearts my pride and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy!”
“I loved her against reason, promise, peace, hope, happiness and all discouragement that could be.”
“I took her into this wretched breast when it was first bleeding from its stabs.”
“Love her! Love her! Love her! How does she use you?”
“For he gave me a look that I did not understand, and it all passed in a moment. But if he had looked at me for an hour, or a day, I could not have remembered his face ever afterwards, as having been more attentive.”
“Well, I thought I overheard Miss Havisham answer- only it seemed so unlikely- 'Well, you can break his heart.'”
“…'For I have seen you give him looks and smiles this very night, such as you never give to me.' 'Do you want me then,' said Estella, turning suddenly with a fixed and serious, if not angry, look, 'to deceive and entrap you?' 'Do you deceive and entrap him Estella?' 'Yes, and many others-all of them but you.'”
“You must know I have no heart… Oh! I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I have no doubt and, of course, if it ceased to beat I should cease to be. But you know what I mean. I have no softness there, no sympathy – sentiment - nonsense.”
Life
“That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. 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.”
“Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule.”
“… 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.”
“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.”
“ . . . No, the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me.”
“Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.”
“So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise.”
“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 dissuading arguments of my best friends.”
“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. 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 . . .”
“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 acquaintances were in the same condition.”
“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?”
“Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule.”
“… 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.”
“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.”
“ . . . No, the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me.”
“Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.”
“So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise.”
“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 dissuading arguments of my best friends.”
“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. 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 . . .”
“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 acquaintances were in the same condition.”
“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?”
Classic
“My fathers family name being Pirrip, and my christian name Phillip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.”
“Now, I return to this young fellow. And the communication I have got to make is, that he has great expectations.”
“Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures, hover about a lighted candle. Can the candle help it?”
“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.”
“It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home.”
“I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief.”
“Yes, Pip, dear boy, I've made a gentleman on you!”
“I begin to think that I almost understand how this comes about. If you had brought up your adopted daughter wholly in the dark confinement of these rooms, and had never let her know that there was such a thing as the daylight by which she has never once seen your face—if you had done that, and then, for a purpose, had wanted her to understand the daylight and know all about it, you would have been disappointed and angry? Or which is a nearer case—if you had taught her, from the dawn of her intelligence, with your utmost energy and might, that there was such a thing as daylight, but that it was made to be her enemy and destroyer, and she must always turn against it, for it had blighted you and would else blight her—if you had done this, and then, for a purpose, had wanted her to take naturally to the daylight and she could not do it, you would have been disappointed and angry? So, 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.”
“Look'ee here, Pip. I'm your second father. You're my son—more to me nor any son. I've put away money, only for you to spend. When I was a hired-out shepherd in a solitary hut, not seeing no faces but faces of sheep till I half-forgot wot men's and women's faces wos like, I see yourn. I see you there a many times plain as ever I see you on them misty marshes. 'Lord strike me dead!' I says each time—and I goes out in the open air to say it under the open heavens—'but wot, if I gets liberty and money, I'll make that boy a gentleman!' And I done it. Why, look at you, dear boy! Look at these here lodgings of yourn, fit for a lord! A lord? Ah! You shall show money with lords for wagers, and beat 'em!”
“Dear Magwitch, I must tell you, now at last. You understand what I say? You had a child once, whom you loved and lost. She lived and found powerful friends. She is living now. She is a lady and very beautiful. And I love her!”
“ . . .suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.”
“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 the shadow of no parting from her.”
“Now, I return to this young fellow. And the communication I have got to make is, that he has great expectations.”
“Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures, hover about a lighted candle. Can the candle help it?”
“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.”
“It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home.”
“I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief.”
“Yes, Pip, dear boy, I've made a gentleman on you!”
“I begin to think that I almost understand how this comes about. If you had brought up your adopted daughter wholly in the dark confinement of these rooms, and had never let her know that there was such a thing as the daylight by which she has never once seen your face—if you had done that, and then, for a purpose, had wanted her to understand the daylight and know all about it, you would have been disappointed and angry? Or which is a nearer case—if you had taught her, from the dawn of her intelligence, with your utmost energy and might, that there was such a thing as daylight, but that it was made to be her enemy and destroyer, and she must always turn against it, for it had blighted you and would else blight her—if you had done this, and then, for a purpose, had wanted her to take naturally to the daylight and she could not do it, you would have been disappointed and angry? So, 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.”
“Look'ee here, Pip. I'm your second father. You're my son—more to me nor any son. I've put away money, only for you to spend. When I was a hired-out shepherd in a solitary hut, not seeing no faces but faces of sheep till I half-forgot wot men's and women's faces wos like, I see yourn. I see you there a many times plain as ever I see you on them misty marshes. 'Lord strike me dead!' I says each time—and I goes out in the open air to say it under the open heavens—'but wot, if I gets liberty and money, I'll make that boy a gentleman!' And I done it. Why, look at you, dear boy! Look at these here lodgings of yourn, fit for a lord! A lord? Ah! You shall show money with lords for wagers, and beat 'em!”
“Dear Magwitch, I must tell you, now at last. You understand what I say? You had a child once, whom you loved and lost. She lived and found powerful friends. She is living now. She is a lady and very beautiful. And I love her!”
“ . . .suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.”
“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 the shadow of no parting from her.”