William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes
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I never was much of an oyster eater, nor can I relish them 'in naturalibus' as some do, but require a quantity of sauces, lemons, cayenne peppers, bread and butter, and so forth, to render them palatable.
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Malice is of the boomerang character, and is apt to turn upon the projector.
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A cheerful look brings joy to the heart.
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An evil person is like a dirty window, they never let the light shine through.
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It is only hope which is real, and reality is a bitterness and a deceit.
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A snob is that man or woman who is always pretending to be something better--especially richer or more fashionable--than he is.
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Those who forgets their friends to follow those of a higher status are truly snobs.
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He who meanly admires mean things is a Snob.
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This Bouillabaisse a noble dish is - A sort of soup or broth, or brew, Or hotchpotch of all sorts of fishes, That Greenwich never could outdo; Green herbs, red peppers, mussels, saffron, Soles, onions, garlic, roach, and dace; All these you eat at Terre's tavern, In that one dish of Bouillabaisse.
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It is from the level of calamities, not that of every-day life, that we learn impressive and useful lessons.
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I wonder is it because men are cowards in heart that they admire bravery so much, and place military valor so far beyond every other quality for reward and worship.
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Why do they always put mud into coffee on board steamers? Why does the tea generally taste of boiled boots?
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'Tis strange what a man may do, and a woman yet think him an angel.
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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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Love seems to survive life, and to reach beyond it. I think we take it with us past the grave. Do we not still give it to those who have left us? May we not hope that they feel it for us, and that we shall leave it here in one or two fond bosoms, when we also are gone?
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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
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Are not there little chapters in everybody's life, that seem to be nothing, and yet affect all the rest of the history?
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He who meanly admires a mean thing is a snob--perhaps that is a safe definition of the character.
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In the midst of friends, home, and kind parents, she was alone.
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A fool can no more see his own folly than he can see his ears.
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There are other books in a man's library besides Ovid, and after dawdling ever so long at a woman's knee, one day he gets up and is free. We have all been there; we have all had the fever--the strongest and the smallest, from Samson, Hercules, Rinaldo, downward: but it burns out, and you get well.
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As nature made every man with a nose and eyes of his own, she gave him a character of his own, too; and yet we, O foolish race! must try our very best to ape some one or two of our neighbors, whose ideas fit us no more than their breeches!
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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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I suppose as long as novels last, and authors aim at interesting their public, there must always be in the story a virtuous and gallant hero; a wicked monster, his opposite; and a pretty girl, who finds a champion. Bravery and virtue conquer beauty; and vice, after seeming to triumph through a certain number of pages, is sure to be discomfited in the last volume, when justice overtakes him, and honest folks come by their own.