William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes
-
A good laugh is sunshine in the house.
-
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.
-
Humor is the mistress of tears.
-
Women like not only to conquer, but to be conquered.
-
The Pall Mall Gazette is written by gentlemen for gentlemen.
-
When Fate wills that something should come to pass, she sends forth a million of little circumstances to clear and prepare the way.
-
No particular motive for living, except the custom and habit of it.
-
Those who are gone, you have. Those who departed loving you, love you still; and you love them always. They are not really gone, those dear hearts and true; they are only gone into the next room; and you will presently get up and follow them, and yonder door will close upon you, and you will be no more seen.
-
The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.
-
One tires of a page of which every sentence sparkles with points, of a sentimentalist who is always pumping the tears from his eyes or your own.
-
Love makes fools of us all, big and little.
-
There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write.
-
There's a great power of imagination about these little creatures, and a creative fancy and belief that is very curious to watch . . . I am sure that horrid matter-of-fact child-rearers . . . do away with the child's most beautiful privilege. I am determined that Anny shall have a very extensive and instructive store of learning in Tom Thumbs, Jack-the-Giant-Killers, etc.
-
You read the past in some old faces.
-
Never lose a chance of saying a kind word.
-
Lucky he who has been educated to bear his fate, whatsoever it may be, by an early example of uprightness, and a childish training in honor.
-
...the greatest tyrants over women are women.
-
Ah! gracious Heaven gives us eyes to see our own wrong, however dim age may make them; and knees not too stiff to kneel, in spite of years, cramp, and rheumatism.
-
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.
-
He that has ears to hear, let him stuff them with cotton.
-
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.
-
For his part, every beauty of art or nature made him thankful as well as happy, and that the pleasure to be had in listening to fine music, as in looking at the stars in the sky, or at a beautiful landscape or picture, was a benefit for which we might thank Heaven as sincerely as for any other worldly blessing.
-
Is beauty beautiful, or is it only our eyes that make it so?
-
it is the ordinary lot of people to have no friends if they themselves care for nobody