William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes
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A pair of bright eyes with a dozen glances suffice to subdue a man; to enslave him, and enflame him; to make him even forget; they dazzle him so that the past becomes straightway dim to him; and he so prizes them that he would give all his life to possess 'em.
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When I say that I know women, I mean I know that I don't know them. Every single woman I ever knew is a puzzle to me, as, I have no doubt, she is to herself.
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To be thought rich is as good as to be rich.
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Life is soul's nursery- its training place for the destinies of eternity.
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A woman's heart is just like a lithographer's stone; what is once written upon it cannot be rubbed out.
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The moral world has no particular objection to vice, but an insuperable repugnance to hearing vice called by its proper name.
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Tis misfortune that awakens ingenuity, or fortitude, or endurance, in hearts where these qualities had never come to life but for the circumstance which gave them a being.
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An immense percentage of snobs, I believe, is to be found in every rank of this mortal life.
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Life without laughing is a dreary blank.
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Next to the young, I suppose the very old are the most selfish. Alas, the heart hardens as the blood ceases to run. The cold snow strikes down from the head, and checks the glow of feeling. Who wants to survive into old age after abdicating all his faculties one by one, and be sans teeth, sans eyes, sans memory, sans hope, sans sympathy?
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Charlotte, having seen his body Borne before her on a shutter, Like a well-conducted person, Went on cutting bread and butter.
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Benevolence and feeling ennoble the most trifling actions.
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Ah! Vanitas Vanitatum! Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?-Come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out.
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How do men feel whose whole lives (and many men's lives are) are lies, schemes, and subterfuges? What sort of company do they keep when they are alone? Daily in life I watch men whose every smile is an artifice, and every wink is an hypocrisy. Doth such a fellow where a mask in his own privacy, and to his own conscience?
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Life is a mirror: if you frown at it, it frowns back; if you smile, it returns the greeting.
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An evil person is like a dirty window, they never let the light shine through.
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Pray God, keep us simple.
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Oh, those women! They nurse and cuddle their presentiments, and make darlings of their ugliest thoughts.
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Choose a good disagreeable friend, if you be wise--a surly, steady, economical, rigid fellow.
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It is only hope which is real, and reality is a bitterness and a deceit.
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A crow, who had flown away with a cheese from a dairy window, sate perched on a tree looking down at a great big frog in a pool underneath him.
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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 pipe draws wisdom from the lips of the philosopher, and shuts up the mouth of the foolish; it generates a style of conversation, contemplative, thoughtful, benevolent, and unaffected.
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Ah me! we wound where we never intended to strike; we create anger where we never meant harm; and these thoughts are the thorns in our cushion. - William Makepeace Thackeray