William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes
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That acknowledgment of weakness which we make in imploring to be relieved from hunger and from temptation is surely wisely put in our daily prayer. Think of it, you who are rich, and take heed how you turn a beggar away.
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Sir, Respect Your Dinner: idolize it, enjoy it properly. You will be many hours in the week, many weeks in the year, and many years in your life happier if you do.
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A good laugh is sunshine in the house.
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Every man ought to be in love a few times in his life, and to have a smart attack of the fever. You are better for it when it is over: the better for your misfortune, if you endure it with a manly heart; how much the better for success, if you win it and a good wife into the bargain!
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As fits the holy Christmas birth, Be this, good friends, our carol still Be peace on earth, be peace on earth, To men of gentle will.
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The book of female logic is blotted all over with tears, and Justice in their courts is forever in a passion.
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Is beauty beautiful, or is it only our eyes that make it so?
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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.
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When you look at me, when you think of me, I am in paradise.
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He that has ears to hear, let him stuff them with cotton.
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Never marry with the expectation of changing a person.
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There is a certain sort of man whose doom in the world is disappointment, who excels in it, and whose luckless triumphs in his meek career of life, I have often thought, must be regarded by the kind eyes above with as much favor as the splendid successes and achievements of coarser and more prosperous men.
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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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The unambitious sluggard pretends that the eminence is not worth attaining, declines altogether the struggle, and calls himself a philosopher. I say he is a poor-spirited coward.
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If fathers are sometimes sulky at the appearance of the destined son-in-law, is it not a fact that mothers become sentimental and, as it were, love their own loves over again.
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There is no man that can teach us to be gentlemen better than Joseph Addison.
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Nature has written a letter of credit upon some men's faces that is honored wherever presented. You cannot help trusting such men. Their very presence gives confidence. There is promise to pay in their faces which gives confidence and you prefer it to another man's endorsement. Character is credit.
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Our great thoughts, our great affections, the truths of our life, never leave us. Surely they can not separate from our consciousness, shall follow it whithersoever that shall go, and are of their nature divine and immortal.
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Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.
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I believe that remorse is the least active of all a man's moral senses.
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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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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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Next to excellence is the appreciation of it.
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Time passes, Time the consoler, Time the anodyne.