Quotes from David Copperfield

15 notable lines from Charles Dickens · 1850

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.

David Copperfield, David Copperfield

  1. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.

    Mr. Micawber, David Copperfield

  2. I am well aware that I am the 'umblest person going.

    Uriah Heep, David Copperfield

  3. If you was writin' to her, p'raps you'd recollect to say that Barkis was willin'; would you?

    Mr. Barkis, Ch. 5

  4. My advice is, never do to-morrow what you can do to-day. Procrastination is the thief of time. Collar him!

    Mr. Micawber, Ch. 12

  5. I am well aware that I am the umblest person going. My mother is likewise a very umble person. We live in a numble abode, Master Copperfield, but have much to be thankful for.

    Uriah Heep, Ch. 16

  6. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.

    Mr. Micawber, Ch. 12

  7. O Agnes, O my soul, so may thy face be by me when I close my life indeed; so may I, when realities are melting from me like the shadows which I now dismiss, still find thee near me, pointing upward!

    Closing lines, Ch. 64 · David Copperfield

  8. Daisy, if anything should ever separate us, you must think of me at my best, old boy. Come! Let us make that bargain. Think of me at my best, if circumstances should ever part us!

    Steerforth, Ch. 29

  9. Never be mean in anything; never be false; never be cruel. Avoid those three vices, Trot, and I can always be hopeful of you.

    Betsey Trotwood, Ch. 19

  10. All was over in a moment. I had fulfilled my destiny. I was a captive and a slave. I loved Dora Spenlow to distraction!

    David, on first seeing Dora, Ch. 26

  11. There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose.

    Annie Strong, Ch. 45

  12. My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest.

    David, Ch. 42

  13. 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.

    David to Uriah Heep, Ch. 52

  14. I should be thankful to him for having saved me from the first mistaken impulse of my undisciplined heart.

    Annie Strong, Ch. 45