'No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.'

'Remember, no man is a failure who has friends.'

- 1946 film "It's a Wonderful Life"

Despite his sometimes caustic satire, Dickens was ultimately an optimist

Michael Slater, a professor of Victorian literature at Birkbeck College, notes that Dickens' anger at Parliament and social injustice never got in the way of his optimism. "There is a constant allegiance to the lives of ordinary people and their pleasures," he said in a 2001 interview with "In Our Time."

'I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot ... The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.'

- Author Jack London (1876 - 1916)

Read the works of Charles Dickens

Dickens' work has long been in the public domain, meaning it's freely available to readers. Project Gutenberg's collection of Dickens' novels allows you to read classic novels like "Oliver Twist" and "A Tale of Two Cities," as well as early works like "Sketches by Boz," at no cost.

'All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.'

- "The Lord of the Rings" author JRR Tolkien (1892-1973)

A quote by Herman Melville

"Whoever is not in the possession of leisure can hardly be said to possess independence."

'Life is like a ten speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use.'

- "Peanuts" cartoonist Charles M. Schulz (1922-2000)

'Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul—and sings the tunes without the words—and never stops at all.'

- Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

'When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.''

- Mister Rogers (1928-2003)

'Mutual ignorance breeds mutual distrust.'

- Businessman Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919)

'We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.'

- Playwright Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

'I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.'

- Author Douglas Adams (1952-2001)

'Hearts are the strongest when they beat in response to noble ideals.'

- American diplomat Ralph Bunche (1904–1971)

'I have learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.'

- Martha Washington (1731-1802)

'I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took an excuse.'

- Modern nursing innovator Florence Nightingale (1820-1910)

'No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.'

-Author Victor Hugo (1802-1885)

'Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world.'

- Albert Einstein

'The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.'

- Mark Twain, from "Pudd'nhead Wilson and Other Tales"

'Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.'

- Jane Addams (1860-1935)

'Profits made out of the distress of the people are always much smaller than profits made out of the most lavish service of the people at the lowest prices that competent management can make possible.'

- Henry Ford

'You will never feel proud of your work if you find no joy within it; your best work is always joyful work.'

- Stevie Wonder (1950-present)

Existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre coined the famous phrase 'Hell is—other people' in his play 'No Exit'

'Everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt and control them. The best readers come to fiction to be free of all that noise.'

- Author Philip Roth (1933-2018)

Twain's ‘To the Person Sitting in the Darkness’ satirized American imperialism

The 1901 essay was a response to the Philippine-American War as well as Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “The White Man’s Burden,” which argued that Western nations had a moral duty to rescue non-Western nations from ignorance. Twain’s essay ironically encouraged lecturing citizens of the countries being invaded: “for the sake of the Business we must persuade him to look at the Philippine matter in another and healthier way. We must arrange his opinions for him.”

Alfred Nobel invented dynamite and later used his fortune to fund peace prizes

Nobel stabilized dangerous nitroglycerin to create dynamite, revolutionizing construction and mining in the 19th century. Despite his success with explosives, he was deeply disturbed by their destructive potential and redirected his legacy toward rewarding human progress.

‘The consumer isn't a moron, she's your wife’ is among David Ogilvy’s most memorable pieces of advertising advice

Some of David Ogilvy’s maxims include, “talent, I believe, is most likely to be found among nonconformists, dissenters, and rebels” and “never write an advertisement which you wouldn’t want your own family to read.”

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

Before writing 'Walden,' transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau nearly burned down his hometown with a campfire that grew out of control.

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

The first robot in literature may have been a 'mechanical man' in 1907's 'Ozma of Oz,' a book in L Frank Baum's 'Wizard of Oz' series.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

Explore a list of the 100 best novels of all time, compiled by some of the world's best living writers, including Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, and Jennifer Egan.

After NASA's Voyager 1 captured Earth as a single pixel as it left the solar system in 1990, astronomer Carl Sagan used the image to reflect on humanity's fragility and the responsibility to protect 'the only world we've ever known.'

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

Many legends about George Washington, including his supposed wooden teeth and the story of cutting down the cherry tree, lack evidence.

Use this calculator to find the dollar value of your mental load, from meal planning to coordinating after-school care for your children.

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Most of the observable universe's volume consists of voids and supervoids—enormous regions of space with little to no galaxies, stars, or light.

The US dollar is the most widely circulated currency in the world, and is involved in nearly 90% of global transactions

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight

See how each of the more than two million known species relates to each other—and to common ancestors—in this zoomable tree of life.

'Silent' fireworks have gained more interest in recent years as a quieter celebratory option.

Bone marrow (soft tissue found inside certain bones) generates roughly 500 billion new blood cells each day

One of the most famous portraits ever taken is 'Afghan Girl' (1984) by Steve McCurry, yet the subject Sharbat Gula went much of her life without being identified or benefitting from the image's success.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

To reduce wrinkles in clothing, research recommends gentle wash cycles with more water and tumble drying with smaller loads and longer times.