Charles Dickens

“ I say, equal terms, because although I know what I am, and the exact depth of the gutter I have lifted myself out of, better than any man does, I am as proud as you are. I am just as proud as you are. Having now asserted my independence in a proper manner, I may come to how do you find yourself, and I hope you’re pretty well.’
The better, Mr. Harthouse gave him to understand as they shook hands, for the salubrious air of Coketown. Mr. Bounderby received the answer with favour.
‘Perhaps you know,’ said he, ‘or perhaps you don’t know, I married Tom Gradgrind’s daughter. ”

“ To whom this honourable and jocular, member fraternally said one day, ‘Jem, there’s a good opening among the hard Fact fellows, and they want men. I wonder you don’t go in for statistics.’ Jem, rather taken by the novelty of the idea, and very hard up for a change, was as ready to ‘go in’ for statistics as for anything else. ”

“ The result of the varieties of boredom I have undergone, is a conviction (unless conviction is too industrious a word for the lazy sentiment I entertain on the subject) , that any set of ideas will do just as much good as any other set, and just as much harm as any other set. ”

“ Bounderby has said, to the service of your country. You have made up your mind,’ said Louisa, still standing before him where she had first stopped - in all the singular contrariety of her self- possession, and her being obviously very ill at ease - ‘to show the nation the way out of all its difficulties.’
‘Mrs. Bounderby,’ he returned, laughing, ‘upon my honour, no. I will make no such pretence to you. I have seen a little, here and there, up and down; I have found it all to be very worthless, as everybody has, and as some confess they have, and some do not ”