Father Time is not always a hard parent and though he tarries for none of his children, often lays his hand lightly upon those who have used him well; making them old men and women inexorably enough, but leaving their hearts and spirits young and in full vigor. With such people the gray head is but the impression of the old fellow's hand in giving them his blessing, and every wrinkle but a notch in the quiet calendar of a well-spent life.
Charles DickensFor though we are perpetually bragging of it as our safety, it is nothing but a poor fringe on the mantle of the upper.
Charles DickensWomen can always put things in fewest words. Except when it's blowing up; and then they lengthens it out.
Charles DickensI 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.
Charles DickensAround and around the house the leaves fall thick, but never fast, for they come circling down with a dead lightness that is sombre and slow.
Charles DickensAt the great iron gate of the churchyard he stopped and looked in. He looked up at the high tower spectrally resisting the wind, and he looked round at the white tombstones, like enough to the dead in their winding-sheets, and he counted the nine tolls of the clock-bell.
Charles Dickens"As I think I told you once before," said I, "it is you who have been, in your greed and cunning, against all the world. It may be profitable to you to reflect, in future, that there never were greed and cunning in the world yet, that did not do too much, and overreach themselves. It is as certain as death."
Charles Dickens