Original text (French)
Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule.
It is strange with how little notice, good, bad, or indifferent, a man may live and die in London.
Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.
The free-lance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.
Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on,
Through words and things, a dim and perilous way.
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.