“A Tale of Two Cities” is one of Charles Dickens’ most celebrated novels, and it is rich with memorable lines that have resonated with readers for generations.

Charles Dickens Quotes of A Tale of Two Cities

Here are some notable quotes from “A Tale of Two Cities”:

“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.”
“A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.”
“I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul.”
“They said of him, about the city that night, that it was the peacefullest man’s face ever beheld there. Many added that he looked sublime and prophetic.”
“There is a man who would give his life to keep a life you love beside you.”
“Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms.”
“Every time he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry, that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to its first position, and presented the same problem to be worked all through, ‘Was it a dream or not?'”
“Then tell the wind and fire where to stop, but don’t tell me.”
“I have a great affection for the Doctor; and I know you have, as well as for Miss Manette.”
“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.”
“Until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words,—‘Wait and hope.’”
“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.”
“All through it, I have known myself to be quite undeserving. And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire.”
“I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.”
“Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death; — the last, much the easiest to bestow, O Guillotine!”
“Through the marquis, by reason of his family, and his youth, and his education, and his youth, and his education, that I will die, and that my child will die! They tell me so.”
“I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out.”
“If you remember, ’tis not by knowledge, but by imagination. I ask no questions and make no stipulations. It is enough that I place before the world a note and a portrait, the like of which has never been known.”
“Men who look on nature, and their fellow-men, and cry that all is dark and gloomy, are in the right; but the sombre colours are reflections from their own jaundiced eyes and hearts. The real hues are delicate, and need a clearer vision.”
“Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark deference of fear and slavery, my friend, will keep the dogs obedient to the whip, as long as this roof shuts out the sky.”
“if he had had any such exalted expectation, he would not have prospered. He had expected labour, and he found it, and did it and made the best of it. In this, his prosperity consisted.”
“me, though he had business relations with me many years ago, and we are now intimate; I will say with the fair daughter to whom he is so devotedly attached, and who is so devotedly attached to him? Believe me, Miss Pross, I don’t approach the topic with you, out of curiosity, but out of zealous interest.” “Well! To the best of my understanding, and bad’s the best, you’ll tell me,” said Miss Pross, softened by the tone of the apology, “he is afraid of the whole subject.”
“In the moonlight which is always sad, as the light of the sun itself is—as the light called human life is—at its coming and its going.”
“eye to the last upon the meat as it roasted, and suddenly. turned over on his back with a sepulchral cry of ‘Cuckoo!’ Since then I have been ravenless.”
“A jednak byłem na tyle słaby i jestem na tyle słaby, by pragnąć, aby pani dowiedziała się, jaką władzę ma pani nade mną, że z garstki popiołu, którą jestem, zmieniam się w płomień.”
“A multitude of people and yet a solitude.”
“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.”
“Death may beget life, but oppression can beget nothing other than itself.”
“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.”
“I love your daughter fondly, dearly, disninterestedly, devotedly. If ever there were love in the world, I love her.”
“Not knowing how he lost himself, or how he recovered himself, he may never feel certain of not losing himself again.”
“Then tell Wind and Fire where to stop,” returned madame; “but don’t tell me.”
“Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule.”
“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! Something of the awfulness, even of Death itself, is referable to this. No more can I turn the leaves of this dear book that I loved, and vainly hope in time to read it all. No more can I look into the depths of this unfathomable water, wherein, as momentary lights glanced into it, I have had glimpses of buried treasure and other things submerged. It was appointed that the book should shut with a a spring, for ever and for ever, when I had read but a page. It was appointed that the water should be locked in an eternal frost, when the light was playing on its surface, and I stood in ignorance on the shore. My friend is dead, my neighbour is dead, my love, the darling of my soul, is dead; it is the inexorable consolidation and perpetuation of the secret that was always in that individuality, and which I shall carry in mine to my life’s end. In any of the burial-places of this city through which I pass, is there a sleeper more inscrutable than its busy inhabitants are, in their innermost personality, to me, or than I am to them?”
“Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death; – the last, much the easiest to bestow, O Guillotine!”
All through it, I have known myself to be quite undeserving. And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire- a fire, however, inseparable in its nature from myself, quickening nothing, lighting nothing, doing no service, idly burning away.”
“There is a man who would give his life to keep a life you love beside you.”
“Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seeds of rapacious licence and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind.”
“I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out…”
“Nothing that we do, is done in vain. I believe, with all my soul, that we shall see triumph.”
“And a beautiful world we live in, when it is possible, and when many other such things are possible, and not only possible, but done– done, see you!– under that sky there, every day.”
“I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me.”
“The cloud of caring for nothing, which overshadowed him with such a fatal darkness, was very rarely pierced by the light within him.”
“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.”
“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!”
“In the moonlight which is always sad, as the light of the sun itself is–as the light called human life is–at its coming and its going.”
“Mr. Cruncher… always spoke of the year of our Lord as Anna Dominoes: apparently under the impression that the Christian era dated from the invention of a popular game, by a lady who had bestowed her name upon it. ”
“He knew enough of the world to know that there is nothing in it better than the faithful service of the heart.”
“REMEMBER HOW STRONG WE ARE IN OUR HAPPINESS, AND HOW WEAK HE IS IN IS MISERY!”
“For you, and for any dear to you, I would do anything. I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. And when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you.”
“You touch some of the reasons for my going, not for my staying away.”
“Perhaps second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, come easily off and on.”
“Of little worth as life is when we misuse it, it is worth that effort. It would cost nothing to lay down if it were not.”
“So does a whole world, with all its greatnesses and littlenesses, lie in a twinkling star. And as mere human knowledge can split a ray of light and analyse the manner of its composition, so, sublimer intelligences may read in the feeble shining of this earth of ours, every thought and act, every vice and virtue, of every responsible creature on it.”
“If I may ride with you, Citizen Evremonde, will you let me hold your hand? I am not afraid, but I am little and weak, and it will give me more courage.” As the patient eyes were lifted to his face, he saw a sudden doubt in them, and then astonishment. He pressed the work-worn, hunger-worn young fingers, and touched his lips.
“Are you dying for him?” she whispered.
“And his wife and child. Hush! Yes.”
“Oh, you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger?”
“Hush! Yes, my poor sister; to the last.”
“When they took a young man into Tellson’s London house, they hid him somewhere till he was old. They kept him in a dark place, like a cheese, until he had the full Tellson flavour and blue-mould upon him. Then only was he permitted to be seen, spectacularly poring over large books, and casting his breeches and gaiters into the general weight of the establishment.”
“Era el mejor de los tiempos y era el peor de los tiempos; la edad de la sabiduría y también de la locura; la época de las creencias y de la incredulidad; la era de la luz y de las tinieblas; la primavera de la esperanza y el invierno de la desesperación. Todo lo poseíamos, pero nada teníamos; íbamos directamente al cielo y nos extraviábamos en el camino opuesto. En una palabra, aquella época era tan parecida a la actual, que nuestras más notables autoridades insisten en que, tanto en lo que se refiere al bien como al mal, sólo es aceptable la comparación en grado superlativo.”
“That glorious vision of doing good is so often the sanguine mirage of so many good minds.”
“You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer,” said Miss Pross, in her breathing. “Nevertheless, you shall not get the better of me. I am an Englishwoman.”
“Above all, one hideous figure grew as familiar as if it had been before the general gaze from the foundations of the world – the figure of the sharp female called La Guillotine.
It was the popular theme for jests; it was the best cure for headache, it infallibly prevented hair from turning gray, it imparted a peculiar delicacy to the complexion, it was the National Razor which shaved close: who kissed La Guillotine looked through the little window and sneezed into the sack.”
“Detestation of the high is the involuntary homage of the low.”
“The leprosy of unreality disfigured every human creature in attendance.”
“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 honoured and held sacred in the other’s soul, than I was in the souls of both.”
“I am not old, but my young way was never the way to age.”
“Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques.”
“In seasons of pestilence, some of us will have a secret attraction to the disease–a terrible passing inclination to die of it.”
“I should like to ask you: — Does your childhood seem far off? Do the days when you sat at your mother’s knee, seem days of very long ago?” Responding to his softened manner, Mr. Lorry answered: “Twenty years back, yes; at this time of my life, no. For, as I draw closer and closer to the end, I travel in the circle, nearer and nearer to the beginning. It seems to be one of the kind smoothings and preparings of the way. My heart is touched now, by many remembrances that had long fallen asleep, of my pretty young mother (and I so old!), and by many associations of the days when what we call the World was not so real with me, and my faults were not confirmed with me.”
“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.”
“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.”
“That, they never could lay their heads upon their pillows; that, they could never tolerate the idea of their wives laying their heads upon their pillows; that, they could never endure the notion of their children laying their heads on their pillows; in short , that there never more could be , for them or theirs , any laying of heads upon pillows at all , unless the prisioner’s head was taken off.
The Attorney General during the trial of Mr. Darnay ”
“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. Ah, confound you! What a change you have made in yourself! A good reason for taking to a man, that he shows you what you have fallen away from, and what you might have been! Change places with him, and would you have been looked at by those blue eyes as he was, and commiserated by that agitated face as he was? Come on, and have it out in plain words! You hate the fellow”
“You speak so feelingly and so manfully, Charles Darnay”
“The great grindstone, Earth, had turned when Mr. Lorry looked out again, and the sun was red on the courtyard. But, the lesser grindstone stood alone there in the calm morning air, with red upon it that the sun had never give, and would never take away.”
“I am no more annoyed when I think of the expression, than I should be annoyed by a man’s opinion of a picture of mine, who had no eye for pictures; or of a piece of music of mine, who had no ear for music.”
“I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Juryman, the Judge, long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument, before it shall cease out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making explanation for itself and wearing it out. ”
“We’ll start to forget a place once we left it”
“Tell the Wind and the Fire where to stop; not me.”
“I am a disappointed drudge, sir. I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me”
“When the time comes, let loose a tiger and a devil; but wait for the time with the tiger and the devil chained -not shown- yet always ready.”
“Other sound than the owl’s voice there was none, save the falling of a fountain into its stone basin; for, it was one of those dark nights that hold their breath by the hour together, and then heave a long low sigh, and hold their breath again.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
“…The wine was red wine, and had stained the ground of the narrow street in the suburb of Saint Antoine, in Paris, where it was spilled. It had stained many hands, too, and many faces, and many naked feet, and many wooden shoes. The hands of the man who sawed the wood, left red marks on the billets; and the forehead of the woman who nursed her baby, was stained with the stain of the old rag she wound about her head again. Those who had been greedy with the staves of the cask, had acquired a tigerish smear about the mouth; and one tall joker so besmirched, his head more out of a long squalid bag of a nightcap than in it, scrawled upon a wall with his finger dipped in muddy wine-lees—BLOOD.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
“Good never come of such evil, a happier end was not in nature to so unhappy a beginning.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
“The two stand in the fast-thinning throng of victims, but they speak as if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, heart to heart, these two children of the Universal Mother, else so wide apart and differing, have come together on the dark highway, to repair home together and to rest in her bosom.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
“It is a long time,’ repeated his wife; ‘and when is it not a long time? Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule.’
‘It does not take a long time to strike a man with Lightning,’ said Defarge.
‘How long,’ demanded madame, composedly, ‘does it take to make and store the lightning? Tell me?”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
“The night wore out, and, as he stood upon the bridge listening to the water as it splashed the river-walls of the Island of Paris, where the picturesque confusion of houses and cathedral shone bright in the light of the moon, the day came coldly, looking like a dead face out of the sky. Then, the night, with the moon and the stars, turned pale and died, and for a little while it seemed as if Creation were delivered over to Death’s dominion. But, the glorious sun, rising, seemed to strike those words, that burden of the night, straight and warm to his heart in its long bright rays. And looking along them, with reverently shaded eyes, a bridge of light appeared to span the air between him and the sun, while the river sparkled under it.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
“When you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
“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!”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
“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,”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
“Will you never understand that I am incorrigible?”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
“Why should you particularly like a man who resembles you? There is nothing in you to like; you know that.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
“I distress you; I draw fast to an end.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
“his face, though lined, bore few traces of anxiety. 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.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
“I hardly seem yet,” returned Charles Darnay, “to belong to this world again.”
“I don’t wonder at it; it’s not so long since you were pretty far advanced on your way to another.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

These quotes give a glimpse into the novel’s depth, exploring themes of love, sacrifice, revolution, and the duality of human nature. Dickens’ prose captures the turbulence of the era and the complexities of the human heart in a way that remains powerful and poignant even today.