I thought it very touching to see these two women, coarse and shabby and beaten, so united; to see what they could be to one another; to see how they felt for one another, how the heart of each to each was softened by the hard trials of their lives. I think the best side of such people is almost hidden from us. What the poor are to the poor is little known, excepting to themselves and God.

I wear the chains I forged in life.

I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart

Trifles make the sum of life.

At last, however, he began to think -- as you or I would have thought at first; for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too . . .

Marley was dead: to begin with.

So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise.