William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes
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A fool can no more see his own folly than he can see his ears.
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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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How grateful are we--how touched a frank and generous heart is for a kind word extended to us in our pain! The pressure of a tender hand nerves a man for an operation, and cheers him for the dreadful interview with the surgeon.
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As an occupation in declining years, I declare I think saving is useful, amusing and not unbecoming. It must be a perpetual amusement. It is a game that can be played by day, by night, at home and abroad, and at which you must win in the long run. . . . What an interest it imparts to life!.
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Tis not the dying for a faith that's so hard... 'Tis the living up to it that's difficult.
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Pray God, keep us simple.
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Diffidence is a sort of false modesty.
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A good woman is the loveliest flower that blooms under heaven; and we look with love and wonder upon its silent grace, its pure fragrance, its delicate bloom of beauty.
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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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That which we call a snob by any other name would still be snobbish.
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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.
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Choose a good disagreeable friend, if you be wise--a surly, steady, economical, rigid fellow.
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You, who are ashamed of your poverty, and blush for your calling, are a snob; as are you who boast of your wealth.
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As they say in the old legends]Before a man goes to the devil himself, he sends plenty of other souls thither.
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Forgotten tones of love recur to us, and kind glances shine out of the past – oh so bright and clear! – oh so longed after! – because they are out of reach; as holiday music from within a prison wall – or sunshine seen through the bars; more prized because unattainable – more bright because of the contrast of present darkness and solitude, whence there is no escape.
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Which of us that is thirty years old has not had its Pompeii? Deep under ashes lies the life of youth--the careless sport, the pleasure and the passion, the darling joy.
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If there is no love more in yonder heart, it is but a corpse unburied.
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People who do not know how to laugh are always pompous and self-conceited.
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Dinner was made for eating, not for talking.
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It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all.
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Society having ordained certain customs, men are bound to obey the law of society, and conform to its harmless orders.
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One of the great conditions of anger and hatred is, that you must tell and believe lies against the hated object, in order, as we said, to be consistent.
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At certain periods of life, we live years of emotion in a few weeks, and look back on those times as on great gaps between the old life and the new.
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Always to be right, always to trample forward, and never to doubt, are not these the great qualities with which dullness takes the lead in the world?