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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.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
A woman with fair opportunities, and without an absolute hump, may marry WHOM SHE LIKES.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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Choose a good disagreeable friend, if you be wise--a surly, steady, economical, rigid fellow.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
Follow your honest convictions and be strong.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
He who meanly admires mean things is a Snob.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
Revenge may be wicked, but it’s natural.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
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.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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An immense percentage of snobs, I believe, is to be found in every rank of this mortal life.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
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.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
It's a great comfort to some people to groan over their imaginary ills.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
A fool can no more see his own folly than he can see his ears.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
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.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
Why do they always put mud into coffee on board steamers? Why does the tea generally taste of boiled boots?
William Makepeace Thackeray
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Dare and the world always yields; or if it beats you sometimes, dare it again and it will succumb.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
You can't order remembrance out of the mind; and a wrong that was a wrong yesterday must be a wrong to-morrow.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
To know nothing, or little, is in the nature of some husbands. To hide, in the nature of how many women? Oh, ladies! how many of you have surreptitious milliners' bills? How many of you have gowns and bracelets which you daren't show, or which you wear trembling?--trembling, and coaxing with smiles the husband by your side, who does not know the new velvet gown from the old one, or the new bracelet from last year's, or has any notion that the ragged-looking yellow lace scarf cost forty guineas and that Madame Bobinot is writing dunning letters every week for the money!
William Makepeace Thackeray -
A cheerful look brings joy to the heart.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
Everybody in Vanity Fair must have remarked how well those live who are comfortably and thoroughly in debt; how they deny themselves nothing; how jolly and easy they are in their minds.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
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.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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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.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
If there is no love more in yonder heart, it is but a corpse unburied.
William Makepeace Thackeray -
Are not there little chapters in everybody's life, that seem to be nothing, and yet affect all the rest of the history?
William Makepeace Thackeray -
We pass by common objects or persons without noticing them; but the keen eye detects and notes types everywhere and among all classes.
William Makepeace Thackeray