William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes
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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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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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Who does not believe his first passion eternal?
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Oh, brother wearers of motley, are there not moments when one grows sick of grinning and trembling and the jingling of cap and bells?
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Not only is the world informed of everything about you, but of a great deal more.
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To our betters eve can reconcile ourselves, if you please--respecting them sincerely, laughing at their jokes, making allowance for their stupidities, meekly suffering their insolence; but we can't pardon our equals going beyond us.
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If success is rare and slow, everybody knows how quick and easy ruin is.
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Novels are sweets. All people with healthy literary appetites love them-almost all women; a vast number of clever, hardheaded men.
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The Pall Mall Gazette is written by gentlemen for gentlemen.
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A good laugh is sunshine in the house.
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What a dignity it gives an old lady, that balance at the bankers! How tenderly we look at her faults if she is a relative; what a kind, good-natured old creature we find her!
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Is beauty beautiful, or is it only our eyes that make it so?
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All is vanity, look you; and so the preacher is vanity too.
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I believe that remorse is the least active of all a man's moral senses.
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What is wanted for the nonce is, that folks should be as agreeable as possible in conversation and demeanor; so that good humor may be said to be one of the very best articles of dress one can wear in societ.
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For my part, I believe that remorse is the least active of all a man's moral senses,--the very easiest to be deadened when wakened, and in some never wakened at all.
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There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write.
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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.
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...the greatest tyrants over women are women.
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Follow your honest convictions and be strong.
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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.
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The affection of young ladies is of as rapid growth as Jack's beanstalk, and reaches up to the sky in a night.
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The true pleasure of life is to live with your inferiors.
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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.