William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes
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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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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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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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Time passes, Time the consoler, Time the anodyne.
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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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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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Never marry with the expectation of changing a person.
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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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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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If you take temptations into account, who is to say that he is better than his neighbor?
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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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In effective womanly beauty form is more than face, and manner more than either.
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When you look at me, when you think of me, I am in paradise.
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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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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.
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All is vanity, nothing is fair.
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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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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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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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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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I will bring order from chaos and light from darkness.