Quote 1
"O Miss Manette, when the little picture of a happy father's face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you!" (2.13.49)
Sydney Carton, certain that his solitary (and unhappy) life could never include Lucie, imagines instead a happy family life for her.
Quote 2
"I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence." (3.15.48)
Sydney Carton, unable to gain Lucie’s love in this lifetime, settles for the epic loyalties that he imagines her family bestowing upon him in the future.
Quote 3
"I see him winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it, faded away." (3.15.49)
Sydney’s loyalties seem to be for everyone but himself. Even his name will be better when it belongs to someone else.
Quote 4
I am like one who died young. All my life might have been. (2.13.17)
Why is Sydney Carton so sure that he can never deserve Lucie? Perhaps this quote offers an explanation: he’s convinced that his lower-class background makes him unfit for the life that he is capable of leading. He sees himself as one who died when his parents did. He’s never been able to believe in his own ability to transcend the circumstances of his youth.
Quote 5
"In short," said Sydney, "this is a desperate time, when desperate games are played for desperate stakes." (3.8.73)
As the new Republic quickly descends into chaos, Sydney’s back-door dealings become the only way to change the political situation of the time.
Quote 6
"I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out." (3.15.46)
Sydney’s last thoughts become a vision of more than just new life for Lucie and her family: they offer up home for a new political future for France, as well.
Quote 7
He had that rather wild, strained, seared marking about the eyes, which may be observed in all free livers of his class, from the portrait of Jeffries downward, and which can be traced, under various disguises of Art, through the portraits of every Drinking Age. (2.5.12)
If Sydney operates under the assumption that he’s naturally fitted for his role, his "lion" (Mr. Stryver) is described by the narrator as equally fated for the role he plays.
Quote 8
At length the jackal had got together a compact repast for the lion, and proceeded to offer it to him. The lion took it with care and caution, made his selections from it, and his remarks upon it, and the jackal assisted both. When the repast was fully discussed, the lion put his hands in his waistband again, and lay down to mediate. (2.5.27)
Sydney does all the thinking while Stryver, his "friend," takes all the credit for being a brilliant legal mind. Depicting this relationship as similar to that of jackals and lions furthers the sense that this is a natural (and unchangeable) order.
Quote 9
I am a disappointed drudge, sir. I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me. (2.4.70)
Get used to Carton’s motto—you’ll read it often. We’re not sure why the man has absolutely no hope for his own future. Perhaps it helps explain, however, his willingness to sacrifice himself for someone else’s future.
Quote 10
"I am not old, but my young way was never the way to age. Enough of me." (3.9.57)
As Carton observes, living in a specific time can be as important to the type of life you lead as anything else. "The way of the age" determines who succeeds and who fails, who lives and even—during the French Revolution—who dies.
Quote 11
His mother had died, years before. These solemn words, which had been read at his father's grave, arose in his mind as he went down the dark streets, among the heavy shadows, with the moon and the clouds sailing on high above him. "I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die." (3.9.89)
Repeating the words of the gospel may seem like a strange choice for Sydney Carton. In the final moments of his life, however, he demonstrates a true (if unlooked-for) sense of faith in the people around him, the nation he dies in, and the higher power he invokes.