Daily Inspiration Quote by Charles Dickens

Dickens skewers the social ritual of compassion by pricing it, literally, as "small change" - the coin you flick to a beggar without breaking stride. The beauty of the line is its fussy specificity: not pity, but "that sort of half sigh", not empathy, but a calibrated performance with "two or three slight nods". He turns sympathy into choreography, a set of gestures so standardized they might as well be minted.

The subtext is class discipline. In "general society", feeling too much is gauche; doing too little risks looking cold. So the respectable person settles on a middle currency: a quiet exhale, a minimal bowing of the head, enough to signal moral awareness without triggering obligation. Dickens understands that Victorian public life runs on these micro-acts of self-exoneration. The nod says, I recognize your hardship. The half-sigh adds a trace of sadness. Together they purchase distance.

Calling it "pity's small change" is also a jab at how the wealthy launder their conscience. Real assistance would cost: time, money, proximity, discomfort, political risk. The "small change" costs almost nothing and buys a lot - social approval, a sense of decency, the comforting illusion that one has participated in goodness. Dickens's intent isn't to ban pity, but to expose how easily it becomes a substitute for responsibility, a transaction that keeps inequality intact while letting everyone feel briefly, performatively humane.