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I made a compact with myself that in my person literature should stand by itself, of itself, and for itself.

— Charles Dickens speech at Liverpool Banquet (1869)

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More quotes by Charles Dickens

It was a good thing to have a couple of thousand people all rigid and frozen together, in the palm of one's hand.

Reflect upon your present blessings — of which every man has many — not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.

Sketches by Boz (1836)

To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart.

Master Humphrey's Clock (1840)

Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule.

Great Expectations (1860)

It is strange with how little notice, good, bad, or indifferent, a man may live and die in London.

Sketches by Boz (1836)

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Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

Francis Bacon Meditationes sacræ (1597)

It is not in the books of the Philosophers, but in the religious symbolism of the Ancients, that we must look for the footprints of Science, and re-discover the Mysteries of Knowledge.

Albert Pike Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871)

There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.

Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.

Logan Pearsall Smith Afterthoughts (1931)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Charles Dickens (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.