William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes
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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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Time passes, Time the consoler, Time the anodyne.
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All is vanity, nothing is fair.
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Never marry with the expectation of changing a person.
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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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Certain it is that scandal is good brisk talk, whereas praise of one's neighbor is by no means lively hearing. An acquaintance grilled, scored, devilled, and served with mustard and cayenne pepper excites the appetite; whereas a slice of cold friend with currant jelly is but a sickly, unrelishing meat.
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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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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.
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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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And in those varieties of pain of which we spoke anon, what a part of confidante has that poor teapot played ever since the kindly plant was introduced among us! What myriads of women have cried over it, to be sure! What sickbeds it has smoked by! What fevered lips have received refreshment from out of it! Nature meant very gently by women when she made that teaplant; and with a little thought what a series of pictures and groups the fancy may conjure up and assemble round the teapot and cup!
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If fun is good, truth is still better, and love best of all.
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Business first; pleasure afterwards.
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Remember, it's as easy to marry a rich woman as a poor woman.
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True love is better than glory.
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Almost all women have hearts full of pity.
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As if the ray which travels from the sun would reach me sooner than the man who blacks my boots.
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Werther had a love for Charlotte Such as words could never utter; Would you know how first he met her? She was cutting bread and butter.
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When I walk with you I feel as if I had a flower in my buttonhole.
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To describe love – making is immoral and immodest; you know it is. To describe it as it really is, or would appear to you and me as lookers – on, would be to describe the most dreary farce, to chronicle the most tautological twaddle. To take note of sighs, hand – squeezes, looks at the moon, and so forth – does this business become our dignity as historians? Come away from those foolish young people – they don't want us; and dreary as their farce is, and tautological as their twaddle, you may be sure it amuses them, and that they are happy enough without us.
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What money is better bestowed than that of a schoolboy's tip? How the kindness is recalled by the recipient in after days! It blesses him that gives and him that takes.
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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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Money has only a different value in the eyes of each.
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People hate as they love, unreasonably.