They are so filthy and bestial that no honest man would admit one into his house for a water-closet doormat.
Interpretation
The quote expresses deep disdain for certain people, suggesting they are unworthy of even the lowest respect.
In this quote, Charles Dickens uses extreme language to illustrate the moral degradation of certain individuals, depicting them as so vile that they are not deserving of even the most trivial forms of acceptance. It reflects on societal values and the standards of decency and honor, serving as a critique of character and integrity in social interactions.
In practice
In a discussion about moral character, this quote by Dickens might be used to exemplify the need for ethical standards.
I recollected one story there was in the village, how that on a certain night in the year (it might be that very night for anything I knew), all the dead people came out of the ground and sat at the heads of their own graves till morning.
A silent look of affection and regard when all other eyes are turned coldly away-the consciousness that we possess the sympathy and affection of one being when all others have deserted us-is a hold, a stay, a comfort, in the deepest affliction, which no wealth could purchase, or power bestow.
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.
There are not a few among the disciples of charity who require, in their vocation, scarcely less excitement than the votaries of pleasure in theirs.
You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer,” said Miss Pross, in her breathing. “Nevertheless, you shall not get the better of me. I am an Englishwoman.
Christmas is a poor excuse every 25th of December to pick a man's pockets.
He'd always known that the world was an interesting place, and his imagination had peopled it with pirates and bandits and spies and astronauts and similar. But he'd also had a nagging suspicion that, when you seriously got right down to it, they were all just things in books and didn't properly exist anymore.
Never have I dealt with anything more difficult than my own soul, which sometimes helps me and sometimes opposes me.
Nothing human is finally calculable; even to ourselves we are strange.
What excites and interests the looker-on at life, what the romances and the statues celebrate, and the grim civic monuments remind us of, is the everlasting battle of the powers of light with those of darkness; with heroism reduced to its bare chance, yet ever and anon snatching victory from the jaws of death.
not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of . . . but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take.
Man's ultimate concern must be expressed symbolically, because symbolic language alone is able to express the ultimate.
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