William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes
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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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The book of female logic is blotted all over with tears, and Justice in their courts is forever in a passion.
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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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Next to excellence is the appreciation of it.
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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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The unambitious sluggard pretends that the eminence is not worth attaining, declines altogether the struggle, and calls himself a philosopher. I say he is a poor-spirited coward.
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It is impossible, in our condition of Society, not to be sometimes a Snob.
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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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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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We have only to change the point of view and the greatest action looks mean.
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An intelligent wife can make her home, in spite of exigencies, pretty much what she pleases.
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To be rich, to be famous? do these profit a year hence, when other names sound louder than yours, when you lie hidden away under ground, along with the idle titles engraven on your coffin? But only true love lives after you, follows your memory with secret blessings or pervades you, and intercedes for you. Non omnis moriar, if, dying, I yet live in a tender heart or two; nor am lost and hopeless, living, if a sainted departed soul still loves and prays for me.
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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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'No business before breakfast, Glum!' says the King. 'Breakfast first, business next.'
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People hate as they love, unreasonably.
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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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To be beautiful is enough! if a woman can do that well who should demand more from her? You don't want a rose to sing.
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You read the past in some old faces.
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If a secret history of books could be written, and the author's private thoughts and meanings noted down alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would become interesting, and dull tales excite the reader!
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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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In effective womanly beauty form is more than face, and manner more than either.
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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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If fun is good, truth is still better, and love best of all.