A Tale of Two Cities contains some of the most powerful quotes in all Dickensian literature. We've put together a compilation of some of the poignant, subtle, and significant quotes on offer from one of the best-selling novels of all time.
Book I - Recalled to Life
Chapter 1: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
Chapter 2: "Keep where you are because, if I should make a mistake, it could never be set right in your lifetime."
Chapter 2: A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!
Chapter 4: But, perhaps the confidential bachelor clerks in Tellson's Bank were principally occupied with the cares of other people; and perhaps second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, come easily off and on.
Chapter 5: The time was to come, when that wine too would be spilled on the street-stones, and when the stain of it would be red upon many there.
Chapter 6: "I bring back the remembrance of a home long desolate, while your poor heart pined away..."
Book II - The Golden Thread
Chapter 1: But indeed, at that time, putting to death was a recipe much in vogue with all trades and professions, and not least of all with Tellson's. Death is Nature's remedy for all things, and why not Legislation's?
Chapter 4: "'I hardly seem yet', returned Charles Darnay, 'to belong to this world again.' 'I don't wonder at it; its not so long since you were pretty far advanced on your way to another.'"
Chapter 4: 'Do you particularly like the man? he muttered, at his own image; why should you particularly like a man who resembles you? There is nothing in you to like; you know that.
Chapter 5: Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away.
Chapter 7: The leprosy of unreality disfigured every human creature in attendance upon Monseigneur.
Chapter 9: "Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark deference of fear and slavery, my friend," observed the Marquis, "will keep the dogs obedient to the whip, as long as this roof," looking up to it, "shuts out the sky."
Chapter 13: "I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul. In my degradation I have not been so degraded but that the sight of you with your father, and of this home made such a home by you, has stirred old shadows that I thought had died out of me. Since I knew you, I have been troubled by a remorse that I thought would never reproach me again, and have heard whispers from old voices impelling me upward, that I thought were silent for ever. I have had unformed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew, shaking off sloth and sensuality, and fighting out the abandoned fight. A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it."
Chapter 19: "You see, said Doctor Manette, turning to him after an uneasy pause, it is very hard to explain, consistently the innermost workings of this poor man's mind. He once yearned so frightfully for that occupation, and it was so welcome when it came; no doubt it relived his pain so much, by substituting the perplexity of the fingers for the perplexity of the brain, by substituting, as he became more practiced, the ingenuity of the hands for the ingenuity of the mental torture; that he has never been able to bear the thought of putting it quite out of reach. Even now, when I believe he is more hopeful of himself than he has ever been, and even speaks of himself with a kind of confidence, the idea that he might need the old employment, and not find it, gives him a sudden sense of terror, like that which one may fancy strikes to the heart of a lost child."
Chapter 20: "I would ask you, dearest, to be very generous with him always, and very lenient on his faults when he is not by. I would ask you to believe that he has a heart he very, very seldom reveals, and that there are deep wounds in it. My dear, I have seen it bleeding."
Book III - The Track of a Storm
Chapter 5: Every day, through the stony streets, the tumbrils now jolted heavily, filled with Condemned. Lovely girls; bright women, brown-haired, black-haired, and grey; youths; stalwart men and old; gentle born and peasant born; all red wine for La Guillotine, all daily brought into light from the dark cellars of the loathsome prisons, and carried to her through the streets to slake her devouring thirst. Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death; — the last, much the easiest to bestow, O Guillotine!
Chapter 8: There was a braced purpose in the arm and a kind of inspiration in the eyes, which not only contradicted his light manner, but changed and raised the man.
Chapter 14:"I would give all I have, except the clothes I wear, to know whether you suspect the truth, or any part of it."
Chapter 15: Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind.
Chapter 15: I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman, weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their course done, lying side by side in their last earthly bed, and I know that each was not more honored and held sacred in the other's soul, than I was in the souls of both.
Chapter 15: "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."
Best Quotes Per Character
Jarvis Lorry - "Feelings! I have no time for them, no chance of them. I pass my whole life, miss, in turning an immense pecuniary Mangle."(Book I Chapter 4)
Doctor Alexandre Manette - "You have no idea how such an apprehension weighs on the sufferer's mind, and how difficult - how almost impossible - it is, for him to force himself to utter a word upon the topic that oppresses him." (Book II Chapter 19)
Lucie Manette - "Remember how strong we are in our happiness, and how weak he is in his misery!"(Book II Chapter 20)
Charles Darnay - "I look only to sharing your fortunes, sharing your life and home, and being faithful to you to the death." (Book II Chapter 10)
Sydney Carton - "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known." (Book III Chapter 15)
Madame Defarge - "Tell the Wind and the Fire where to stop; not me!" (Book III, Chapter 12)
Miss Pross - "You shall not get the better of me. I am an Englishwoman." (Book III Chapter 14)
The Marquis - "Repression is the only lasting philosophy."(Book II Chapter 9)
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