William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes
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The little cares, fears, tears, timid misgivings, sleepless fancies of I don't know how many days and nights, were forgotten under one moment's influence of that familiar, irresistible smile.
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It is impossible, in our condition of Society, not to be sometimes a Snob.
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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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He first selected the smallest one...and then bowed his head as though he were saying grace. Opening his mouth very wide, he struggled for a moment, after which all was over. I shall never forget the comic look of despair he cast upon the other five over-occupied shells. I asked him how he felt. 'Profoundly grateful,' he said, 'as if I had swallowed a small baby.'
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In effective womanly beauty form is more than face, and manner more than either.
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What a dignity it gives an old lady, that balance at the bankers! How tenderly we look at her faults if she is a relative; what a kind, good-natured old creature we find her!
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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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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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If a man has committed wrong in life, I don't know any moralist more anxious to point his errors out to the world than his own relations.
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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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When you look at me, when you think of me, I am in paradise.
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Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.
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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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There is no man that can teach us to be gentlemen better than Joseph Addison.
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We have only to change the point of view and the greatest action looks mean.
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I will bring order from chaos and light from darkness.
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To endure is greater than to dare; to tire out hostile fortune; to be daunted my no difficulty; to keep heart when all have lost it; to go through intrigue spotless; to forgo even ambition when the end is gained - who can say this is not greatness?
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Sure, love vincit omnia; is immeasurably above all ambition, more precious than wealth, more noble than name. He knows not life who knows not that: he hath not felt the highest faculty of the soul who hath not enjoyed it.
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'No business before breakfast, Glum!' says the King. 'Breakfast first, business next.'
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All is vanity, nothing is fair.
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Only to two or three persons in all the world are the reminiscences of a man's early youth interesting: to the parent who nursed him; to the fond wife or child mayhap afterwards who loves him; to himself always and supremely--whatever may be his actual prosperity or ill fortune, his present age, illness, difficulties, renown, or disappointments--the dawn of his life still shines brightly for him, the early griefs and delights and attachments remain with him ever faithful and dear.
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Time passes, Time the consoler, Time the anodyne.
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Frequent the company of your betters.
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A clever, ugly man every now and then is successful with the ladies, but a handsome fool is irresistible.