Martin Chuzzlewit

What is exaggeration to one class of minds and perceptions, is plain truth to another. That which is commonly called a long–sight, perceives in a prospect innumerable features and bearings non–existent to a short–sighted person. I sometimes ask myself whether there may occasionally be a difference of this kind between some writers and some readers; whether it is ALWAYS the writer who colours highly, or whether it is now and then the reader whose eye for colour is a little dull?

— Martin Chuzzlewit

Any man may be in good spirits and good temper when he's well dressed. There an't much credit in that. If I was very ragged and very jolly, then I should begin to feel I had gained a point, Mr Pinch.

— Martin Chuzzlewit

There might be some credit in being jolly with a wife.

— Martin Chuzzlewit

With affection beaming in one eye, and calculation shining out of the other.

— Martin Chuzzlewit

"Do not repine, my friends," said Mr. Pecksniff, tenderly. "Do not weep for me. It is chronic." And with these words, after making a futile attempt to pull off his shoes, he fell into the fireplace.

— Martin Chuzzlewit

Regrets," said Martin, "are the natural property of grey hairs; and I enjoy, in common with all other men, at least my share of such inheritance.

— Martin Chuzzlewit

Keep up appearances whatever you do.

— Martin Chuzzlewit

Here's the rule for bargains — 'Do other men, for they would do you.' That's the true business precept.

— Martin Chuzzlewit

If its individual citizens, to a man, are to be believed, it always is depressed, and always is stagnated, and always is at an alarming crisis, and never was otherwise; though as a body, they are ready to make oath upon the Evangelists, at any hour of the day or night, that it is the most thriving and prosperous of all countries on the habitable globe.

— Martin Chuzzlewit

Buy an annuity cheap, and make your life interesting to yourself and everybody else that watches the speculation.

— Martin Chuzzlewit

Leave the bottle on the chimley-piece, and don't ask me to take none, but let me put my lips to it when I am so dispoged, and then I will do what I'm engaged to do, according to the best of my ability.

— Martin Chuzzlewit

Rich folks may ride on camels, but it an't so easy for 'em to see out of a needle's eye. That is my comfort, and I hope I knows it.

— Martin Chuzzlewit

I'll tell you what, my dear," he observed, when Mrs Gamp had at last withdrawn and shut the door, "that's a ve-ry shrewd woman. That's a woman whose intellect is immensely superior to her station in life. That's a woman who observes and reflects in an uncommon manner. She's the sort of woman now," said Mould, drawing his silk handkerchief over his head again, and composing himself for a nap "one would almost feel disposed to bury for nothing; and do it neatly, too!

— Martin Chuzzlewit

He'd make a lovely corpse.

— Martin Chuzzlewit

But charity begins at home, and justice begins next door.

— Martin Chuzzlewit

Our fellow-countryman is a model of a man, quite fresh from Natur's mold!

— Martin Chuzzlewit

Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.

— Martin Chuzzlewit

I could have bore it with a thankful art. But the words she spoke of Mrs Harris, lambs could not forgive. No, Betsey!" said Mrs Gamp, in a violent burst of feeling, "nor worms forget!

— Martin Chuzzlewit