William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes
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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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It is all very well for you, who have probably never seen any spiritual manifestations, to talk as you do; but if you had seen what I have witnessed you would hold a different opinion.
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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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She lived in her past life — every letter seemed to recall some circumstance of it. How well she remembered them all! His looks and tones, his dress, what he said and how — these relics and remembrances of dead affection were all that were left her in the world.
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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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Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.
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We have only to change the point of view and the greatest action looks mean.
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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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In effective womanly beauty form is more than face, and manner more than either.
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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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'No business before breakfast, Glum!' says the King. 'Breakfast first, business next.'
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There is no man that can teach us to be gentlemen better than Joseph Addison.
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When you look at me, when you think of me, I am in paradise.
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If you take temptations into account, who is to say that he is better than his neighbor?
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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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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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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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I will bring order from chaos and light from darkness.
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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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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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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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All is vanity, nothing is fair.
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Frequent the company of your betters.
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Sure, occasion is the father of most that is good in us.