William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes
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The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, familiar things new.
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Though small was your allowance, You saved a little store: And those who save a little, Shall get a plenty more.
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Oh, Vanity of vanities! How wayward the decrees of Fate are; How very weak the very wise, How very small the very great are!
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All amusements to which virtuous women are not admitted, are, rely upon it, deleterious in their nature.
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Despair is perfectly compatible with a good dinner, I promise you.
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Women are jealous of cigars... they regard them as a strong rival.
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Perhaps there is no greater test of a man's regularity and easiness of conscience than his readiness to face the postman. Blessed is he who is made happy by the sound of a rat-tat! The good are eager for it; but the naughty tremble at the sound thereof.
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Titles are abolished; and the American Republic swarms with men claiming and bearing them.
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It is a friendly heart that has plenty of friends.
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If you had told Sycorax that her son Caliban was as handsome as Apollo, she would have been pleased, witch as she was.
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If, in looking at the lives of princes, courtiers, men of rank and fashion, we must perforce depict them as idle, profligate, and criminal, we must make allowances for the rich men's failings, and recollect that we, too, were very likely indolent and voluptuous, had we no motive for work, a mortal's natural taste for pleasure, and the daily temptation of a large income. What could a great peer, with a great castle and park, and a great fortune, do but be splendid and idle?
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I never knew whether to pity or congratulate a man on coming to his senses.
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If you will fling yourself under the wheels, Juggernaut will go over you; depend upon it.
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I would rather make my name than inherit it.
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Novelty has charms that our minds can hardly withstand.
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Come forward, some great marshal, and organize equality in society, and your rod shall swallow up all the juggling old court gold-sticks
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if you are not allowed to touch the heart sometimes in spite of syntax, and are not to be loved until you all know the difference between trimeter and trameter, may all Poetry go to the deuce, and every schoolmaster perish miserably!
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We know that Heaven chastens those whom it loves best; being pleased by repeated trials, to make . . . pure spirits more pure.
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Happiest time of youth and life, when love is first spoken and returned; when the dearest eyes are daily shining welcome, and the fondest lips never tire of whispering their sweet secrets; when the parting look that accompanies "Good night!" gives delightful warning of tomorrow.
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Vanity Fair is a very vain, wicked, foolish place, full of all sorts of humbugs and falsenesses and pretensions.
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Vanity is often the unseen spur.
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Fairy roses, fairy rings, turn out sometimes troublesome things.
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A lady who sets her heart upon a lad in uniform must prepare to change lovers pretty quickly, or her life will be but a sad one.
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There is a skeleton in every house.