William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes
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Young ladies may have been crossed in love, and have had their sufferings, their frantic moments of grief and tears, their wakeful nights, and so forth; but it is only in very sentimental novels that people occupy themselves perpetually with that passion, and I believe what are called broken hearts are a very rare article indeed.
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To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best.
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Ho, pretty page, with the dimpled chin That never has known the barber's shear, All your wish is woman to win, This is the way that boys begin. Wait till you come to Forty Year.
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We can't all be lions in this world. There must be some lambs, harmless, kindly, gregarious creatures for eating and shearing.
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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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Charming Alnaschar visions! it is the happy privilege of youth to construct you.
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The death of a child occasions a passion of grief and frantic tears, such as your end, brother reader, will never inspire.
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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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He who meanly admires a mean thing is a snob--perhaps that is a safe definition of the character.
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There are many sham diamonds in this life which pass for real, and vice versa.
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Hint at the existence of wickedness in a light, easy, and agreeable manner, so that nobody's fine feelings may be offended.
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A fool can no more see his own folly than he can see his ears.
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That which we call a snob by any other name would still be snobbish.
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Kindnesses are easily forgotten; but injuries! what worthy man does not keep those in mind?
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Let a man who has to make his fortune in life remember this maxim: Attacking is the only secret. Dare and the world yields, or if it beats you sometimes, dare it again and you will succeed.
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If success is rare and slow, everybody knows how quick and easy ruin is.
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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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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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If thou hast never been a fool, be sure thou wilt never be a wise man.
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Happy! Who is happy? Was there not a serpent in Paradise itself? And if Eve had been perfectly happy beforehand, would she have listened to the tempter?
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We pass by common objects or persons without noticing them; but the keen eye detects and notes types everywhere and among all classes.
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To be rich, to be famous? do these profit a year hence, when other names sound louder than yours, when you lie hidden away under ground, along with the idle titles engraven on your coffin? But only true love lives after you, follows your memory with secret blessings or pervades you, and intercedes for you. Non omnis moriar, if, dying, I yet live in a tender heart or two; nor am lost and hopeless, living, if a sainted departed soul still loves and prays for me.
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Come children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out.
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We love being in love, that's the truth on't. If we had not met Joan, we should have met Kate, and adored her. We know our mistresses are no better than many other women, nor no prettier, nor no wiser, nor no wittier. 'Tis not for these reasons we love a woman, or for any special quality or charm I know of; we might as well demand that a lady should be the tallest woman in the world, like the Shropshire giantess, as that she should be a paragon in any other character, before we began to love her.