William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes
-
Women like not only to conquer, but to be conquered.
-
Life is the soul's nursery.
-
What man's life is not overtaken by one or more of those tornadoes that send us out of the course, and fling us on rocks to shelter as best we may?
-
And in those varieties of pain of which we spoke anon, what a part of confidante has that poor teapot played ever since the kindly plant was introduced among us! What myriads of women have cried over it, to be sure! What sickbeds it has smoked by! What fevered lips have received refreshment from out of it! Nature meant very gently by women when she made that teaplant; and with a little thought what a series of pictures and groups the fancy may conjure up and assemble round the teapot and cup!
-
There are many sham diamonds in this life which pass for real, and vice versa.
-
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.
-
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."
-
Humor is the mistress of tears.
-
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?
-
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.
-
Dare and the world always yields; or if it beats you sometimes, dare it again and it will succumb.
-
Kindnesses are easily forgotten; but injuries! what worthy man does not keep those in mind?
-
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.
-
Perhaps all early love affairs ought to be strangled or drowned, like so many blind kittens.
-
Next to the very young, I suppose the very old are the most selfish.
-
If a man's character is to be abused, say what you will, there's nobody like a relative to do the business.
-
I want a sofa, as I want a friend, upon which I can repose familiarly. If you can't have intimate terms and freedom with one and the other, they are of no good.
-
The wicked are wicked, no doubt, and they go astray and they fall, and they come by their deserts; but who can tell the mischief which the very virtuous do?
-
There is no man that can teach us to be gentlemen better than Joseph Addison.
-
Out of the fictitious book I get the expression of the life, of the times, of the manners, of the merriment, of the dress, the pleasure, the laughter, the ridicules of society. The old times live again. Can the heaviest historian do more for me?
-
A man is seldom more manly than when he is what you call unmanned,--the source of his emotion is championship, pity, and courage; the instinctive desire to cherish those who are innocent and unhappy, and defend those who are tender and weak.
-
The best of women are hypocrites.
-
Oh, my young friends, how delightful is the beginning of a love – business, and how undignified, sometimes, the end!
-
Never marry with the expectation of changing a person.