Bleak House Quotes

Find the perfect quote to float your boat. Shmoop breaks down key quotations from Bleak House.

Identity Quotes

Another ruined suitor, who periodically appears from Shropshire and breaks out into efforts to address the Chancellor at the close of the day's business and who can by no means be made to understan...

Appearances Quotes

Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and d...

Principles Quotes

Sir Leicester Dedlock is only a baronet, but there is no mightier baronet than he. His family is as old as the hills, and infinitely more respectable. He has a general opinion that the world migh...

Duty Quotes

[Jarndyce] asked me what I thought of Mrs. Jellyby. "She exerts herself very much for Africa, sir," I said. "Nobly!" returned Mr. Jarndyce. "But you answer like Ada." Whom I had not heard. "You...

Guilt and Blame Quotes

[…] instead of finding Mr. Skimpole stretched upon the bed or prostrate on the floor, I found him standing before the fire smiling at Richard, while Richard, with a face of great embarrassment, l...

Rules and Order Quotes

Well may the court be dim, with wasting candles here and there; well may the fog hang heavy in it, as if it would never get out; well may the stained-glass windows lose their colour and admit no li...

Poverty Quotes

Then the active and intelligent [beadle], who has got into the morning papers as such, comes with his pauper company to Mr. Krook's and bears off the body of our dear brother here departed to a hem...

Respect and Reputation Quotes

Sir Leicester receives the gout as a troublesome demon, but still a demon of the patrician order. All the Dedlocks, in the direct male line, through a course of time during and beyond which the me...

Love Quotes

An ugly woman, very poorly clothed, hurried in while I was glancing at them, and coming straight up to the mother, said, "Jenny! Jenny!" The mother rose on being so addressed and fell upon the wom...

Language and Communication Quotes

[Krook] touched me on the arm to stay me, and chalked the letter J upon the wall--in a very curious manner, beginning with the end of the letter and shaping it backward. It was a capital letter, n...