William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes
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What is it to be a gentleman? Is it to be honest, to be gentle, to be generous, to be brave, to be wise, and, possessing all these qualities, to exercise them in the most graceful outward manner? Ought a gentleman to be a loyal son, a true husband, an honest father? Ought his life to be decent, his bills to be paid, his taste to be high and elegant, his aims in life lofty and noble?
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You must not judge hastily or vulgarly of Snobs: to do so shows that you are yourself a Snob.
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Oh, brother wearers of motley, are there not moments when one grows sick of grinning and trembling and the jingling of cap and bells?
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An intelligent wife can make her home, in spite of exigencies, pretty much what she pleases.
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You read the past in some old faces.
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It is impossible, in our condition of Society, not to be sometimes a Snob.
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There is a certain sort of man whose doom in the world is disappointment, who excels in it, and whose luckless triumphs in his meek career of life, I have often thought, must be regarded by the kind eyes above with as much favor as the splendid successes and achievements of coarser and more prosperous men.
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Next to excellence is the appreciation of it.
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The affection of young ladies is of as rapid growth as Jack's beanstalk, and reaches up to the sky in a night.
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People hate as they love, unreasonably.
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A clever, ugly man every now and then is successful with the ladies, but a handsome fool is irresistible.
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To see a young couple loving each other is no wonder; but to see an old couple loving each other is the best sight of all.
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Time passes, Time the consoler, Time the anodyne.
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Never lose a chance of saying a kind word. As Collingwood never saw a vacant place in his estate but he took an acorn out of his pocket and planted it, so deal with your compliments through life. An acorn costs nothing, but it may spread into a prodigious timber.
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Who has not remarked the readiness with which the closest of friends and honestest of men suspect and accuse each other of cheating when they fall out on money matters? Everybody does it. Everybody is right, I suppose, and the world is a rogue.
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Might I give counsel to any man, I would say to him, try to frequent the company of your betters. In books and in life, that is the most wholesome society; learn to admire rightly; the great pleasure of life is that. Note what great men admire.
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If fun is good, truth is still better, and love best of all.
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'No business before breakfast, Glum!' says the King. 'Breakfast first, business next.'
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In effective womanly beauty form is more than face, and manner more than either.
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Business first; pleasure afterwards.
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Where is truth, forsooth, and who knoweth it? Is Beauty beautiful, or is it only our eyes that make it so? Does Venus squint? Has she got a splay-foot, red hair, and a crooked back? Anoint my eyes, good Fairy Puck, so that I may ever consider the Beloved Object a paragon! Above all, keep on anointing my mistress's dainty peepers with the very strongest ointment, so that my noddle may ever appear lovely to her, and that she may continue to crown my honest ears with fresh roses!
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A woman may possess the wisdom and chastity of Minerva, and we give no heed to her, if she has a plain face. What folly will not a pair of bright eyes make pardonable? What dullness may not red lips are sweet accents render pleasant? And so, with their usual sense of justice, ladies argue that because a woman is handsome, therefore she is a fool. O ladies, ladies! there are some of you who are neither handsome nor wise.
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We have only to change the point of view and the greatest action looks mean.
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When one fib becomes due as it were, you must forge another to take up the old acceptance; and so the stock of your lies in circulation inevitably multiplies, and the danger of detection increases every day.