Great Expectations quotes are important because they capture the essence of the emotions and themes in the novel, providing insight into its timeless message.
They allow readers to reflect on the story’s deeper meanings and connect with it more meaningfully.
Great Expectations Quotes With Page Numbers Part 1
“Ask no questions, and you’ll be told no lies.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 2, Page 14
“I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 3, Page 16
“In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 6, Page 41
“I looked at the stars, and considered how awful it would be for a man to turn his face up to them as he froze to death, and see no help or pity in all the glittering multitude.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 7, Page 50
“We were equals afterwards, as we had been before; but, afterwards at quiet times when I sat looking at Joe and thinking about him, I had a new sensation of feeling conscious that I was looking up to Joe in my heart.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 7, Page 50
“So new to him,” she muttered, “so old to me; so strange to him, so familiar to me; so melancholy to both of us!…”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 8, Page 59
“Her contempt for me was so strong, that it became infectious, and I caught it.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 8, Page 60
“In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 8, Page 63
“Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 9, Page 72
“That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 9, Page 72
“Break their hearts my pride and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 12, Page 95
“It is not possible to know how far the influence of any amiable, honest-hearted duty-doing man flies out into the world, but it is very possible to know how it has touched one’s self in going by.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 13, Page 108
“She had curiously thoughtful and attentive eyes; eyes that were very pretty and very good.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 17, Page 125
“Do you want to be a gentleman, to spite her or to gain her over? Because, if it is to spite her, I should think – but you know best – that might be better and more independently done by caring nothing for her words. And if it is to gain her over, I should think – but you know best – she was not worth gaining over.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 17, Page 129
“Scattered wits take a long time in picking up.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 17, Pages 132, 133
“Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before–more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 19, Page 160
“We need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 19, Page 160
“We need never be ashamed of our tears.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 19, Page 160
“We changed again, and yet again, and it was now too late and too far to go back, and I went on. And the mists had all solemnly risen now, and the world lay spread before me.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 19, Page 160
Great Expectations Part 2 Quotes
“No varnish can hide the grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 3, Page 181
“So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 8, Page 218
“Life is made of ever so many partings welded together”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 8, Page 224
“All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 9, Page 225
“I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 10, Page 232
“The unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I love her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection .”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 10, Page 232
“The unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I love her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 10, Page 232
“Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 10, Page 232
“You must know,’ said Estella, condescending to me as a beautiful and brilliant woman might, ‘that I have no heart—if that has anything to do with my memory.’
I got through some jargon to the effect that I took the liberty of doubting that. That I knew better. That there could be no such beauty without it.
‘Oh! I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I have no doubt,’ said Estella, ‘and, of course, if it ceased to beat I should cease to be. But you know what I mean. I have no softness there, no—sympathy—sentiment—nonsense.’
… ‘I am serious,’ said Estella, not so much with a frown (for her brow was smooth) as with a darkening of her face; ‘If we are to be thrown much together, you had better believe it at once. No!’ imperiously stopping me as I opened my lips. ‘I have not bestowed my tenderness anywhere. I have never had any such thing.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 10, Pages 237, 238
“Love her, love her, love her! If she favours you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces – and as it gets older and stronger, it will tear deeper – love her, love her, love her!”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 10, Page 239
“I’ll tell you,” said she, in the same hurried passionate whisper, “what real love it. It is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter – as I did!”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 10, Page 240
“And still I stood looking at the house, thinking how happy I should be if I lived there with her, and knowing that I never was happy with her, but always miserable.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 14, Page 271
“There was something very comfortable in having plenty of stationery.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 15, Page 275
“I never had one hour’s happiness in her society, and yet my mind all round the four-and-twenty hours was harping on the happiness of having her with me unto death.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapte 19, Page 301
“You should know,” said Estella. “I am what you have made me. Take all the praise, take all the blame; take all the success, take all the failure;
in short, take me.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 19, Page 304
“I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 19, Page 306
“I begin to think,’ said Estella, in a musing way, after another moment of calm wonder, ‘that I almost understand how this comes about. If you had brought up your adopted daughter wholly in the dark confinement of these rooms, and had never let her know that there was such a thing as the daylight by which she has never once seen your face―if you had done that, and then, for a purpose, had wanted her to understand the daylight and know all about it, you would have been disappointed and angry? . . .’
Or,’ said Estella, ‘―which is a nearer case―if you had taught her, from the dawn of her intelligence, with your utmost energy and might, that there was such a thing as daylight, but that it was made to be her enemy and destroyer, and she must always turn against it, for it had blighted you and would else blight her―if you had done this, and then, for a purpose, had wanted her to take naturally to the daylight and she could not do it, you would have been disappointed and angry? . . .’
So,’ said Estella, ‘I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.”~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 19, Page 306
“Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures, hover about a lighted candle. Can the candle help it?”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 19, Page 310
Quotes From Great Expectations Part 3
“Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There’s no better rule.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 1, Page 336
“Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since – on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made, are not more real, or more impossible to displace with your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation I associate you only with the good, and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you!”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 5, Pages 364, 365
“You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since-on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 5, Pages 364, 354
“You have been in every line I have ever read.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 5, Page 364
“I stole her heart away and put ice in its place.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 10, Page 399
“. . . in seclusion, she had secluded herself from a thousand natural and healing influences; that, her mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do and must and will that reverse the appointed order of their Maker . . .”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 10, Page 399
“Take the pencil and write under my name, ‘I forgive her.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 10, Page 403
“It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 15, Page 434
“I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 20, Page 484
“There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 20, Page 484
“Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 20, Page 484
“Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 20, Page 484
“I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so, the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.”
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter 20, Page 484
Great Expectations Summary
Great Expectations is a classic novel by Charles Dickens. It follows the life of Pip, an orphan living in Kent, England, to whom an unknown benefactor gives a great fortune.
Through Pip’s journey, he encounters love, loss, and the harsh realities of life as a young adult. Along the way, he meets various characters from all walks of life and learns valuable lessons about loyalty, ambition, and fortune.
Despite facing many difficulties and tragedies, Pip’s journey is ultimately rewarding as he discovers the truth about his benefactor, discovers true love, and learns to appreciate the simple pleasures in life.
Great Expectations is a timeless classic that will continue to delight readers of all ages.