William Makepeace Thackeray Quotations | Page 3

The great quality of Dulness is to be unalterably contented with itself.

Life without laughing is a dreary blank.

We pass by common objects or persons without noticing them; but the keen eye detects and notes types everywhere and among all classes.

Who has not seen how women bully women? What tortures have men to endure compared to those daily repeated shafts of scorn and cruelty with which poor women are riddled by the tyrants of their sex?

A snob is that man or woman who is always pretending to be something better--especially richer or more fashionable--than he is.

To be thought rich is as good as to be rich.

I have seen no men in life loving their profession so much as painters, except, perhaps, actors, who, when not engaged themselves, always go to the play.

Sure, occasion is the father of most that is good in us.

When Fate wills that something should come to pass, she sends forth a million of little circumstances to clear and prepare the way.

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.

In effective womanly beauty form is more than face, and manner more than either.

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?

An immense percentage of snobs, I believe, is to be found in every rank of this mortal life.

He who meanly admires a mean thing is a snob--perhaps that is a safe definition of the character.

I have long gone about with a conviction on my mind that I had a work to do-a Work, if you like, with a great W; a Purpose to fulfil; ... a Great Social Evil to Discover and to Remedy.

To know nothing, or little, is in the nature of some husbands. To hide, in the nature of how many women? Oh, ladies! how many of you have surreptitious milliners' bills? How many of you have gowns and bracelets which you daren't show, or which you wear trembling?--trembling, and coaxing with smiles the husband by your side, who does not know the new velvet gown from the old one, or the new bracelet from last year's, or has any notion that the ragged-looking yellow lace scarf cost forty guineas and that Madame Bobinot is writing dunning letters every week for the money!

Which of us that is thirty years old has not had its Pompeii? Deep under ashes lies the life of youth--the careless sport, the pleasure and the passion, the darling joy.

I will bring order from chaos and light from darkness.

I never was much of an oyster eater, nor can I relish them 'in naturalibus' as some do, but require a quantity of sauces, lemons, cayenne peppers, bread and butter, and so forth, to render them palatable.

He who meanly admires mean things is a Snob.

To be beautiful is enough! if a woman can do that well who should demand more from her? You don't want a rose to sing.

Titles are abolished; and the American Republic swarms with men claiming and bearing them.

Those we love can but walk down to the pier with us - the voyage we must make alone.

A woman's heart is just like a lithographer's stone; what is once written upon it cannot be rubbed out.

The thorn in the cushion of the editorial chair.

If fun is good, truth is still better, and love best of all.

True love is better than glory.

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?

The great moments of life are but moments like the others. Your doom is spoken in a word or two. A single look from the eyes; a mere pressure of the hand, may decide it; or of the lip,s though they cannot speak.

Almost all women have hearts full of pity.

Our measure of rewards and punishments is most partial and incomplete, absurdly inadequate, utterly worldly; and we wish to continue it into the next world. Into that next and awful world we strive to pursue men, and send after them our impotent paltry verdicts of condemnation or acquittal. We set up our paltry little rod to measure heaven immeasurable.

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.

We can't all be lions in this world. There must be some lambs, harmless, kindly, gregarious creatures for eating and shearing.

You, who are ashamed of your poverty, and blush for your calling, are a snob; as are you who boast of your wealth.

Oh, Vanity of vanities! How wayward the decrees of Fate are; How very weak the very wise, How very small the very great are!

All amusements to which virtuous women are not admitted, are, rely upon it, deleterious in their nature.

We who have lived before railways were made belong to another world. It was only yesterday, but what a gulf between now and then! Then was the old world. Stage-coaches, more or less swift, riding-horses, pack-horses, highwaymen, knights in armor, Norman invaders, Roman legions, Druids, Ancient Britons painted blue, and so forth -- all these belong to the old period. But your railroad starts the new era, and we of a certain age belong to the new time and the old one. We who lived before railways, and survive out of the ancient world, are like Father Noah and his family out of the Ark.

Those who forgets their friends to follow those of a higher status are truly snobs.

It is comparatively easy to leave a mistress, but very hard to be left by one.

Novels are sweets. All people with healthy literary appetites love them-almost all women; a vast number of clever, hardheaded men.

At certain periods of life, we live years of emotion in a few weeks, and look back on those times as on great gaps between the old life and the new.

Certain it is that scandal is good brisk talk, whereas praise of one's neighbor is by no means lively hearing. An acquaintance grilled, scored, devilled, and served with mustard and cayenne pepper excites the appetite; whereas a slice of cold friend with currant jelly is but a sickly, unrelishing meat.

[As they say in the old legends]Before a man goes to the devil himself, he sends plenty of other souls thither.

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.

You must not judge hastily or vulgarly of Snobs: to do so shows that you are yourself a Snob.

Charlotte, having seen his body Borne before her on a shutter, Like a well-conducted person, Went on cutting bread and butter.

I knew all along that the prize I had set my life on was not worth the winning.

If, in looking at the lives of princes, courtiers, men of rank and fashion, we must perforce depict them as idle, profligate, and criminal, we must make allowances for the rich men's failings, and recollect that we, too, were very likely indolent and voluptuous, had we no motive for work, a mortal's natural taste for pleasure, and the daily temptation of a large income. What could a great peer, with a great castle and park, and a great fortune, do but be splendid and idle?

Ho, pretty page, with the dimpled chin That never has known the barber's shear, All your wish is woman to win, This is the way that boys begin. Wait till you come to Forty Year.

It is from the level of calamities, not that of every-day life, that we learn impressive and useful lessons.

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!

Fairy roses, fairy rings, turn out sometimes troublesome things.

Learn to admire rightly; the great pleasure of life is that. Note what the great men admired; they admired great things; narrow spirits admire basely, and worship meanly.

Forgotten tones of love recur to us, and kind glances shine out of the past--oh so bright and clear!--oh so longed after!--because they are out of reach; as holiday music from within a prison wall--or sunshine seen through the bars; more prized because unattainable--more bright because of the contrast of present darkness and solitude, whence there is no escape.

How do men feel whose whole lives (and many men's lives are) are lies, schemes, and subterfuges? What sort of company do they keep when they are alone? Daily in life I watch men whose every smile is an artifice, and every wink is an hypocrisy. Doth such a fellow where a mask in his own privacy, and to his own conscience?

What is a gentleman? It is to be honest, to be gentle, to be generous, to be brave, to be wise; and possessed of all these qualities to exercise them in the most graceful manner.

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.

When I say that I know women, I mean I know that I don't know them. Every single woman I ever knew is a puzzle to me, as, I have no doubt, she is to herself.

If you take temptations into account, who is to say that he is better than his neighbor?

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.

Only to two or three persons in all the world are the reminiscences of a man's early youth interesting: to the parent who nursed him; to the fond wife or child mayhap afterwards who loves him; to himself always and supremely--whatever may be his actual prosperity or ill fortune, his present age, illness, difficulties, renown, or disappointments--the dawn of his life still shines brightly for him, the early griefs and delights and attachments remain with him ever faithful and dear.

Cheerfulness means a contented spirit, a pure heart, a kind and loving disposition; it means humility and ~ charity, a generous appreciation of others, and a modest opinion of self.

Dare and the world always yields; or if it beats you sometimes, dare it again and it will succumb.

You read the past in some old faces.

There is a skeleton in every house.

Presently, we were aware of an odour gradually coming towards us, something musky, fiery, savoury, mysterious, - a hot drowsy smell, that lulls the senses, and yet enflames them, - the truffles were coming.

All is vanity, nothing is fair.

Though small was your allowance, You saved a little store: And those who save a little, Shall get a plenty more.

Revenge may be wicked, but it’s natural.

The world is good natured to people who are good natured.

Ah! Vanitas Vanitatum! Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?-Come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out.

Some cynical Frenchman has said that there are two parties to a love-transaction: the one who loves and the other who condescends to be so treated.

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.

...the greatest tyrants over women are women.

Follow your honest convictions and be strong.

People hate as they love, unreasonably.

The pipe draws wisdom from the lips of the philosopher, and shuts up the mouth of the foolish; it generates a style of conversation, contemplative, thoughtful, benevolent, and unaffected.

Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?

If a man's character is to be abused, say what you will, there's nobody like a relative to do the business.

Bravery never goes out of fashion.

You can't order remembrance out of the mind; and a wrong that was a wrong yesterday must be a wrong to-morrow.

If there is no love more in yonder heart, it is but a corpse unburied.

Women are jealous of cigars... they regard them as a strong rival.

As an occupation in declining years, I declare I think saving is useful, amusing and not unbecoming. It must be a perpetual amusement. It is a game that can be played by day, by night, at home and abroad, and at which you must win in the long run. . . . What an interest it imparts to life!.

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?

Life is a mirror: if you frown at it, it frowns back; if you smile, it returns the greeting.

A cheerful look brings joy to the heart.

Never lose a chance of saying a kind word.

No particular motive for living, except the custom and habit of it.