If you can't get to be oncommon through going straight, you'll never get to do it through going crooked.
 Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (1861). copy citation

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Author Charles Dickens
Source Great Expectations
Topic
Date 1861
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1400/1400-h/1400-h.htm

Context

“Whether that might be or mightn't be, is a thing as can't be looked into now, without putting your sister on the Rampage; and that's a thing not to be thought of as being done intentional. Lookee here, Pip, at what is said to you by a true friend. Which this to you the true friend say. If you can't get to be oncommon through going straight, you'll never get to do it through going crooked. So don't tell no more on 'em, Pip, and live well and die happy.” “You are not angry with me, Joe?” “No, old chap. But bearing in mind that them were which I meantersay of a stunning and outdacious sort,—alluding to them which bordered on weal-cutlets and dog-fighting,—a sincere well-wisher would adwise, Pip, their being dropped into your meditations, when you go upstairs to bed.” source