AMBITION AND SELF IMPROVEMENT IN GREAT EXPECTATIONS QUOTES

by

“I have been bent and broken, but—I hope—into a better shape.” – Pip

“I want to be better than I am. I am discontented and want a chance to make myself happier.” – Pip

“I have a heart to be touched by the spectacle of a man’s soul, and see it struggling with its trials and passions, and then flitting aside and resolving to be just again.” – Pip

“I’ll be true to my word, and I promise you I’ll be a true gentleman in my own life, and I’ll try to teach others to be gentlemen.” – Pip

“I resolved, if my lungs would permit me, to breathe that same air every evening.” – Pip

“I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.” – Pip

“I am what I am. I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul.” – Pip

“Take nothing on appearances; take everything on evidence. There’s no better rule.” – Mr. Jaggers

“It is a dangerous thing to see anything in the sphere of a vain blusterer, before the vain blusterer sees it himself.” – Mr. Jaggers

“You must know that there is nothing in the world neither cruel nor hot, nor cold nor mild, nor nasty nor small, that is not promised to Pip.” – Miss Havisham

“The more I drank of it, the more excited I was.” – Pip

“Minds, like bodies, will often fall into a pimpled, ill-conditioned state from mere excess of comfort.” – Pip

“It was one of those moments of brief and complete isolation.” – Pip

“When we got into the, he stopped it, and coming out behind it, put his hand on my shoulder, to keep me between himself and the nossle of the cooling-vat.” – Pip

“I am forever yours–dead or alive, buried alive.” – Miss Havisham

“No varnish can hide the grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself.” – Pip

“You have been in every line I have ever read.” – Pip

“There is nothing more healthy than to try to steer a middle course when one is in a position of danger.” – Pip

“It was the face of the man who had made the waxen image of my heart, and the terror of the man who had been stabbed in the back.” – Pip

“Don’t cry, you’ll mess up your face.” – Joe

“From that day, I was claimed and cherished by an over watchful guardian.” – Pip

“We’ll eat our din-din as uswual, and wait till Father comes home, to tell Father what’s the matter.” – Pip

“You have nothing to gain by trying to be what you are not. You have nothing to lose by being true to yourself.” – Estella

“It is never idle for me to think.” – Pip

“There’s not a better job of being happy than being good.” – Pip

“I have thought of you a good deal. I need not recall the past, because, though I have not a good memory, I have a bad memory.” – Pip

“For his sake, I decided I must be a better man.” – Pip

“You must expect to have some rude questions asked you.” – Mr. Jaggers

“My necklace was a perfect imitation, and they admired it, as it passed round, with a curious attention.” – Pip