A Tale of Two Cities QUOTES

Madame Defarge

"And if you were shown a flock of birds, unable to fly, and were set upon them to strip them of their feathers for your own advantage, you would set upon the birds of finest feathers; would you not?

Lucie

"But I am sure that he is capable of good things, magnanimous things."

Narrator

"Death is Nature's remedy for all things, and why not Legislation's? Accordingly, the forger was put to Death; the utterer of a bad note was put to Death; the unlawful opener of a letter was put to Death; the purloiner of forty shillings and sixpence was put to death; the holder of a horse at Tellson's door, who made off with it, was put to Death; the coiner of a bad schilling was put to Death; the sounders of three-fourths of the notes in the whole gamut of Crime, were put to Death. Not that it did the least good in the way of prevention--it might almost have been worth remarking that the fact was exactly the reverse--but, it cleared off (as to this world) the trouble of each particular case, and left nothing else connected with it to be looked after."

Carton

"Don't be afraid to hear me. Don't shrink from anything I say. I am like one who died young. All my life might have been."

Lorry

"Eighteen years! Gracious Creator of day! To be buried alive for eighteen years!"

Marquis Evermore

"Even in my father's time, we did a world of wrong, injuring every human creature who came between us and our pleasure, whatever it was. Why need I speak of my father's time, when it is equally yours?"

Gabelle

"For the love of Heaven, of justice, of generosity, of the honour of your noble name, I supplicate you, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, to succour and release me. My fault is that I have been true to you. Oh, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, I pray you be true to me!'"

Manette

"I am not a shoemaker by trade? No, I was not a shoemaker by trade. I - I learnt it here. I taught myself."

Stryver

"I don't care about fortune: she is a charming creature, and I have made up my mind to please myself; on the whole, I think I can afford to please myself. She will have in me a man already pretty well off, and a rapidly rising man, and a man of some distinction; it is a piece of good fortune for her, but she is worthy of good fortune."

Manette

"I have saved him."

Lucie

"I have sometimes sat alone here of an evening, listening, until I have made the echoes out to be the echoes of all the footsteps that are coming by and by into our lives."

Lorry

"I hope you care to be recalled to life?"

Defarge

"I know it all, I know it all. Be a brave man, my Gaspard! It is better for the poor plaything to die so, than to live. It has died in a moment without pain. Could it have lived an hour as happily?"

Carton

"I play my ace, denunciation of Mr. Barsad to the nearest Section Committee. Look over your hand, Mr. Barsad, and see what you have."

Jerry

"I tell you...that you buried paving stones and earth in that there coffin."

Jerry

"I won't be gone again, in this manner. I am as rickety as a hackney-coach, I'm as sleepy as laudanum, my lines is strained to that degree that I shouldn't know, if it wasn't for the pain in 'em, which was me and which was somebody else, yet I'm none the better for it in pocket; and it's my suspicion that you've been at it from morning to night to prevent me from being better for it in the pocket, and I won't put up with it, Aggerawayter, and what do you say now!"

Marquis Evermore

"I would ride over any of you very willingly, and exterminate you from the earth."

Madame Defarge to Lucie

"If the Republic should demand of you the sacrifice of your child herself, you would have no duty but to sacrifice her"

Lorry

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."

Jerry

If, as an honest tradesman, my wenturs goes wrong to-night, I shall make sure that you're been praying agin me, and I shall work you for it the same as if I seen you do it."

Stryver

"There is no harm at all done. I have not proposed to the young lady, and, between ourselves, I am by no means certain, on reflection, that I ever should have committed myself to that extent. Mr. Lorry, you cannot control the mincing vanities and giddiness of empty-headed girls; you must not expect to do it, or you will always be disappointed. Now, pray say no more about it. I tell you, I regret it on account of others, but I am satisfied on my own account. And I am really very much obliged to you for allowing me to sound you, and for giving me your advice; you know the young lady better than I do; you were right, it never would have done."

Madame Defarge

"Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule."

Narrator

"Villain Foulon taken, my sister! Old Foulon taken, my mother! Miscreant Foulon taken, my daughter! Then, a score of others ran into the midst of these, beating their breasts, tearing their hair, and screaming, Foulon alive! Foulon who told the starving people they might eat grass! Foulon who told my old father that he might eat grass, when I had no bread to give him! Foulon who told my baby it might suck grass, when these breasts were dry with want! O mother of God, this Foulon! O Heaven, our suffering! Hear me, my dead baby and my withered father: I swear on my knees, on these stones, to avenge you on Foulon!"

Lorry

"What a night it has been! Almost a night, Jerry, to bring the dead out of their graves."

Madame Defarge

"Woman imbecile and pig-like! I take no answer from you. I demand to see her."

Mender of roads describing Gaspard

*"As they descend the hill like madmen running a race, he falls. They laugh and pick him up again"

Darnay about Lucie

*"God bless her for her sweet compassion"

Lucie about Darnay at trial

*"He added that perhaps George Washington might gain almost as great a name in history as George the Third."

Lorry to Defarge about Manette

*"He is greatly changed"

Carton to Darnay

*"I am a disappointed drudge, Sir. I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me."

Lorry to Lucie

*"I am a man of business. I have a business charge to acquit myself of....I will, with your leave, relate to you, miss, the story of one of our customers."

Carton to Solomon Pross

*"I could not better testify my respect for your sister that by finally relieving her of her brother"

Evremonde to Monsieur the Marquis in Town

*"I devote you to the Devil"

Lucie to Darnay about Carton

*"I would ask you, dearest, to be very generous with him always, and very lenient on his faults when he is not by."

Pross to Lorry

*"If it was ever intended that I should go across salt water, do you suppose Providence would have cast my lot in an island?"

Defarge to Darnay

*"In the name of that sharp female newly born and called La Guillotine, why did you come to France?"

Jerry to himself

*"Much of that wouldn't do for you, Jerry! I say, Jerry! You'd be in a blazing bad way if recalling to life was to come into fashion."

Defarge to Lorry

*"That she (Madame Defarge) may be able to recognize the faces and know the persons. It is for their safety."

Carton to himself

*"Tis a far far better thing I do than I have ever done. Tis a far far better rest I go to than I have ever known"

Pross to the Vengeance

*"Well I am sure Boldface! I hope you are pretty well!"

Jerry to his wife

*"What do you mean by flopping yourself down and praying agin me?"

Stryver to Carton

*"You don't know the value of money, you live hard...you really ought to think about a nurse"

Madame Defarge to Defarge about revolution

*"although it is a long time on the road, it is on the road and coming. I tell thee it never retreats and never stops"

Carton to Lucie

*"think now and then that there is a man who would give his life to keep a life you love beside you"

Lucie

"If, when I tell you, dearest dear, that your agony is over, and that I have come here to take you from it, and that we go to England to be at peace and at rest, I cause you to think of your useful life laid waste, and of our native France so wicked to you, weep for it, weep for it! And if, when I shall tell you of my name, and of my father who is living, and of my mother who is dead, you learn that I have to kneel to my honoured father, and implore his pardon for never having for his sake striven all day and lain awake and wept all night, because the love of my poor mother hid his torture from me, weep for it, weep for it! Weep for her, then, and for me! Good gentlemen, thank God! I feel his sacred tears upon my face, and his sobs strike against my heart. O, see! Thank God for us, thank God!"

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."

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."

Narrator

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness..."

Lorry

"Jerry, say that my answer was, 'RECALLED TO LIFE.'"

Lorry

"Recalled to life."

Monsieur the Marquis

"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,"

Manette

"She had laid her head upon my shoulder, that night when I was summoned out--she had a fear of my going, though I had none--and when I was brought to the North Tower they found these upon my sleeve. 'You will leave me them? They can never help me to escape in the body, though they may in the spirit.' Those words I said. I remember them very well.'"

Madame Defarge

"Tell the wind and fire where to stop; not me!"

Madame Defarge

"The wives and mothers we have been used to see since we were as little as this child, and much less, have not been greatly considered? We have known their husbands and fathers laid in prison and kept from them, often enough? All our lives, we have seen our sister-women suffer, in themselves and in their children, poverty, nakedness, hunger, thirst, sickness, misery, oppression and neglect of all kinds?"

Darnay

This property and France are lost to me...I renounce them."

Carton

"...think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you."

Lorry

"A matter of business. Regard it as a matter of business - business that must be done."