How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
'he looks to me as if he gamed.' 'It's immoral to game,' said Mrs. Sparsit. 'It's ridiculous, ma'am,' said Bitzer, 'because the chances are against the players.' (2.1.106-107)
Two ideas here – Mrs. Sparsit rejects gaming on moral grounds (in theory because those who win take money from those who lose based not on skill but on luck). Bitzer, on the other hand, simply finds gambling an illogical way to try to gain financially.
Quote #5
I am going in for your respected father's opinions — really because I have no choice of opinions, and may as well back them as anything else […] I assure you I attach not the least importance to any opinions. The result of the varieties of boredom I have undergone is a conviction (unless conviction is too industrious a word for the lazy sentiment I entertain on the subject), that any set of ideas will do just as much good as any other set, and just as much harm as any other set.' (2.2.31-33)
In the novel, this cynical attitude is made out to be even worse than Gradgrind's convictions. To believe in nothing at all is worse than believing in the wrong thing. Why?
Quote #6
The whelp went home, and went to bed. If he had had any sense of what he had done that night, and had been less of a whelp and more of a brother, he might have turned short on the road, might have gone down to the ill-smelling river that was dyed black, might have gone to bed in it for good and all, and have curtained his head for ever with its filthy waters. (2.3.54)
Suicide is not a particularly good moral option, but the narrator seems super mad at Tom right now. The narrator isn't pleased at all about the fact that Tom has not only sold his sister, but has now told Harthouse about it.