William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes
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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.
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She had not character enough to take to drinking, and moaned about, slip-shod and in curl-papers, all day.
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It is comparatively easy to leave a mistress, but very hard to be left by one.
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Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?
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Bad husbands will make bad wives.
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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.
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Since the days of Adam, there has been hardly a mischief done in this world but a woman has been at the bottom of it.
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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.
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To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best.
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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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A gentleman, is a rarer thing than some of us think for. Which of us can point out many such in his circle--men whose aims are generous, whose truth is constant and elevated; who can look the world honestly in the face, with an equal manly sympathy for the great and the small? We all know a hundred whose coats are well made, and a score who have excellent manners; but of gentlemen how many? Let us take a little scrap of paper, and each make out his list.
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Dare and the world always yields; or if it beats you sometimes, dare it again and it will succumb.
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Revenge may be wicked, but it’s natural.
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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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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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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."
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If a man's character is to be abused, say what you will, there's nobody like a relative to do the business.
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He was always thinking of his brother's soul, or of the souls of those who differed with him in opinion: it is a sort of comfort which many of the serious give themselves.
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Who feels injustice, who shrinks before a slight, who has a sense of wrong so acute, and so glowing a gratitude for kindness, as a generous boy?
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Do not be in a hurry to succeed. What would you have to live for afterwards? Better make the horizon your goal; it will always be ahead of you.
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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.'
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The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.
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What, indeed, does not that word "cheerfulness" imply? It means a contented spirit, it means a pure heart, it means a kind and loving disposition; it means humility and charity; it means a generous appreciation of others, and a modest opinion of self.
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Women like not only to conquer, but to be conquered.