William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes
-
Almost all women will give a sympathizing hearing to men who are in love. Be they ever so old, they grow young again with that conversation, and renew their own early times.
-
As they say in the old legends]Before a man goes to the devil himself, he sends plenty of other souls thither.
-
Choose a good disagreeable friend, if you be wise--a surly, steady, economical, rigid fellow.
-
The play is done; the curtain drops, Slow falling to the prompter's bell A moment yet the actor stops And looks around to say farewell.
-
Successful people aren't born that way. They become successful by establishing the habit of doing things unsuccessful people don't like to do. The successful people don't always like these things themselves; they just get on and do them.
-
If there is no love more in yonder heart, it is but a corpse unburied.
-
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.
-
Taste is something quite different from fashion, superior to fashion.
-
It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all.
-
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!
-
Follow your honest convictions and be strong.
-
Under the magnetism of friendship the modest man becomes bold; the shy, confident; the lazy, active; and the impetuous, prudent and peaceful.
-
Charming Alnaschar visions! it is the happy privilege of youth to construct you.
-
Dare and the world always yields; or if it beats you sometimes, dare it again and it will succumb.
-
Who was the blundering idiot who said 'fine words butter no parsnips'? Half the parsnips of society are served and rendered palatable with no other sauce.
-
We who have lived before railways were made belong to another world. It was only yesterday, but what a gulf between now and then! Then was the old world. Stage-coaches, more or less swift, riding-horses, pack-horses, highwaymen, knights in armor, Norman invaders, Roman legions, Druids, Ancient Britons painted blue, and so forth -- all these belong to the old period. But your railroad starts the new era, and we of a certain age belong to the new time and the old one. We who lived before railways, and survive out of the ancient world, are like Father Noah and his family out of the Ark.
-
A fool can no more see his own folly than he can see his ears.
-
We are most of us very lonely in this world; you who have any who love you, cling to them and thank God.
-
There is no good in living in a society where you are merely the equal of everybody else. The true pleasure of life is to live with your inferiors.
-
Then sing as Martin Luther sang, As Doctor Martin Luther sang, "Who loves not wine, woman and song, He is a fool his whole life long."
-
Revenge may be wicked, but it’s natural.
-
Some cynical Frenchman has said that there are two parties to a love-transaction: the one who loves and the other who condescends to be so treated.
-
Which, I wonder, brother reader, is the better lot, to die prosperous and famous, or poor and disappointed? To have, and to be forced to yield; or to sink out of life, having played and lost the game? That must be a strange feeling, when a day of our life comes and we say, 'To-morrow, success or failure won't matter much; and the sun will rise, and all the myriads of mankind go to their work or their pleasure as usual, but I shall be out of the turmoil.'
-
Not only is the world informed of everything about you, but of a great deal more.