# Quote — Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

> Chateau and hut, stone face and dangling figure, the red stain on the stone floor, and the pure water in the village well — thousands of acres of land — a whole province of France — all France itself — lay under the night sky, concentrated into a faint hair-breadth line. So does a whole world, with all its greatnesses and littlenesses, lie in a twinkling star. And as mere human knowledge can split a ray of light and analyse the manner of its composition, so, sublimer intelligences may read in the feeble shining of this earth of ours, every thought and act, every vice and virtue, of every responsible creature on it.

- Author: [Charles Dickens](https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-dickens.md)
- Book: [A Tale of Two Cities](https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-dickens/a-tale-of-two-cities.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_Tale_of_Two_Cities#Chapter_XVI_-_Still_Knitting) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Topics: [morality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/morality.md)
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-dickens/a-tale-of-two-cities/chateau-and-hut

## More from this book

> I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman, weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their course done, lying side by side in their last earthly bed, and I know that each was not more honoured and held sacred in the other's soul, than I was in the souls of both.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-dickens/a-tale-of-two-cities/i-see-that.md)

Topics: [memory](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/memory.md)

> I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see no more.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-dickens/a-tale-of-two-cities/i-see-the.md)

Topics: [death](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/death.md)

> 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.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-dickens/a-tale-of-two-cities/i-see-a-beautiful.md)

Topics: [freedom](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom.md), [hope](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hope.md)