William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes
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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.
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If I mayn't tell you what I feel, what is the use of a friend?
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Next to the very young, I suppose the very old are the most selfish.
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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?
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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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There are many sham diamonds in this life which pass for real, and vice versa.
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Oh, my young friends, how delightful is the beginning of a love – business, and how undignified, sometimes, the end!
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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.
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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.
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Be it remembered that man subsists upon the air more than upon his meat and drink; but no one can exist for an hour without a copious supply of air. The atmosphere which some breathe is contaminated and adulterated, and with its vital principles so diminished that it cannot fully decarbonize the blood, nor fully excite the nervous system.
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Tis hard with respect to Beauty, that its possessor should not have a life enjoyment of it, but be compelled to resign it after, at the most, some forty years lease
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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?
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The world is good natured to people who are good natured.
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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.
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Never lose a chance of saying a kind word.
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Not only is the world informed of everything about you, but of a great deal more.
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Perhaps all early love affairs ought to be strangled or drowned, like so many blind kittens.
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Humor is the mistress of tears.
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Who does not believe his first passion eternal?
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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?
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If success is rare and slow, everybody knows how quick and easy ruin is.
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The true pleasure of life is to live with your inferiors.
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The great quality of Dulness is to be unalterably contented with itself.
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When Fate wills that something should come to pass, she sends forth a million of little circumstances to clear and prepare the way.