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'No business before breakfast, Glum!' says the King. 'Breakfast first, business next.'
William Makepeace Thackeray -
When you look at me, when you think of me, I am in paradise.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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A clever, ugly man every now and then is successful with the ladies, but a handsome fool is irresistible.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
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.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
For his part, every beauty of art or nature made him thankful as well as happy, and that the pleasure to be had in listening to fine music, as in looking at the stars in the sky, or at a beautiful landscape or picture, was a benefit for which we might thank Heaven as sincerely as for any other worldly blessing.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
I will bring order from chaos and light from darkness.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
One of the greatest of a great man's qualities is success; 't is the result of all the others; 't is a latent power in him which compels the favor of the gods, and subjugates fortune.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
It is an awful thing to get a glimpse, as one sometimes does, when the time is past, of some little, little wheel which works the whole mighty machinery of fate, and see how our destinies turn on a minute's delay or advance.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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Is beauty beautiful, or is it only our eyes that make it so?
William Makepeace Thackeray -
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.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
All is vanity, look you; and so the preacher is vanity too.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
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!
William Makepeace Thackeray -
Pray God, keep us simple.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
Lucky he who has been educated to bear his fate, whatsoever it may be, by an early example of uprightness, and a childish training in honor.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
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.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
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.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
He that has ears to hear, let him stuff them with cotton.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
If you take temptations into account, who is to say that he is better than his neighbor?
William Makepeace Thackeray -
To our betters eve can reconcile ourselves, if you please--respecting them sincerely, laughing at their jokes, making allowance for their stupidities, meekly suffering their insolence; but we can't pardon our equals going beyond us.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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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.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
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!
William Makepeace Thackeray -
Almost all women have hearts full of pity.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
Kindnesses are easily forgotten; but injuries! what worthy man does not keep those in mind?
William Makepeace Thackeray