A Tale of Two Cities Doctor Manette Quotes

Doctor Manette

Quote 4

What private solicitude could rear itself against the deluge of the Year One of Liberty—the deluge rising from below, not falling from above, and with the windows of Heaven shut, not opened! (3.4.8)

The rallying cry of "Liberty" becomes blind to the struggles and the rights of individuals. As everyone tells Doctor Manette, individual sacrifices for the good of the Republic should be welcomed—even if those sacrifices include the unfair execution of family members.

Doctor Manette

Quote 5

While one external cause, and that a reference to his long lingering agony, would always—as on the trial—evoke this condition from the depths of his soul, it was also in its nature to arise of itself, and to draw a gloom over him, as incomprehensible to those unacquainted with his story as if they had seen the shadow of the actual Bastille thrown upon him by a summer sun, when the substance was three hundred miles away. (2.4.2)

Doctor Manette’s imprisonment actually refines some of his most noble qualities. His experiences may be incommunicable, but they’ve also made him into a man of incredible strength.