A Tale of Two Cities Quotes

The 8 most famous lines from Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities (1859), each with its speaker and the scene it belongs to. These are the quotes readers underline, copy into essays and put on walls - gathered in one place, explained in a line.

• “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness...”

  - The narrator. The most famous opening sentence in English fiction.

• “Recalled to life.”

  - The message. The cryptic note delivered to Jarvis Lorry — Dr Manette is alive.

• “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”

  - Sydney Carton. The novel's last words, at the guillotine.

• “I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss.”

  - Sydney Carton. His vision of the future Paris he buys with his death.

• “A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.”

  - The narrator. From the Dover mail-coach chapters.

• “The wine was red wine, and had stained the ground of the narrow street in the suburb of Saint Antoine, in Paris, where it was spilled.”

  - The narrator. The broken wine cask — the revolution's first taste, and its omen.

• “Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms.”

  - The narrator. The closing pages' warning about what the Revolution became.

• “Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no crueller sight than the sight of that red soil.”

  - The narrator. The morning after the grindstone scene.

Why these lines survive

Charles Dickens’s sentences earn their fame by compression: each line carries the whole book’s argument in a form you can carry in your pocket. Read in order, the 8 quotes above also sketch the novel’s shape - the world it opens, the pressure it applies, the note it ends on. If you meet them before the book, nothing is spoiled beyond mood; if you meet them after, each one lands like a place you have been.

Quote collectors: pair this page with the A Tale of Two Cities quiz to see which lines actually stuck, the book club questions when you want to argue about them, or how long the reread takes - about 9 hours and 31 minutes at an average pace. If the lines did their job and you want more of the same nerve, the books like A Tale of Two Cities list is next.

Want the whole shelf’s lines? Our Charles Dickens books in order guide lists every book.

How to use a quotes page

Three honest uses. Before reading: skim the first two quotes to taste the prose - if the voice does not pull you, the book will not either. During: mark which quote you actually reach in the text, because the distance between famous line and lived scene is where a book keeps its secrets. After: pick the one quote you would defend at dinner and check it against the discussion questions - a quote you can argue about is a quote you understood. What a quotes page is not for is replacing the book; five lines of Charles Dickens are an invitation, not a summary.

More quote collections

Great Expectations quotes, Heart of Darkness quotes, The Time Machine quotes, The Hound of the Baskervilles quotes - or browse quotes from all 133 classics. Then see which of them stuck on the original book quiz.

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