A Loving Heart Is The Truest

From Chapter 9 of David Copperfield (1850), often quoted in a lightly modernised form; the original reads "a loving heart was better and stronger than wisdom." The chapter is titled "I Have a Memorable Birthday" and concerns events around David's mother and the Murdstone household. David Copperfield was Dickens's own favourite of his novels and, in its first-person form and themes of childhood suffering and perseverance, the most autobiographical — making this sentiment a kind of personal credo.