Best 288 quotes of William Makepeace Thackeray on MyQuotes

William Makepeace Thackeray

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    A cheerful look brings joy to the heart.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    A clever, ugly man every now and then is successful with the ladies, but a handsome fool is irresistible.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    A crow, who had flown away with a cheese from a dairy window, sate perched on a tree looking down at a great big frog in a pool underneath him.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    A fool can no more see his own folly than he can see his ears.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    A gentleman, is a rarer thing than some of us think for. Which of us can point out many such in his circle--men whose aims are generous, whose truth is constant and elevated; who can look the world honestly in the face, with an equal manly sympathy for the great and the small? We all know a hundred whose coats are well made, and a score who have excellent manners; but of gentlemen how many? Let us take a little scrap of paper, and each make out his list.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    A good woman is the loveliest flower that blooms under heaven; and we look with love and wonder upon its silent grace, its pure fragrance, its delicate bloom of beauty.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    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.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    Ah me! we wound where we never intended to strike; we create anger where we never meant harm; and these thoughts are the thorns in our cushion. - William Makepeace Thackeray

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    Alas! we are the sport of destiny.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

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

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    All is vanity, look you; and so the preacher is vanity too.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    Almost all women have hearts full of pity.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    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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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    Always to be right, always to trample forward, and never to doubt, are not these the great qualities with which dullness takes the lead in the world?

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    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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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    And in those varieties of pain of which we spoke anon, what a part of confidante has that poor teapot played ever since the kindly plant was introduced among us! What myriads of women have cried over it, to be sure! What sickbeds it has smoked by! What fevered lips have received refreshment from out of it! Nature meant very gently by women when she made that teaplant; and with a little thought what a series of pictures and groups the fancy may conjure up and assemble round the teapot and cup!

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    An evil person is like a dirty window, they never let the light shine through.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

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

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    An intelligent wife can make her home, in spite of exigencies, pretty much what she pleases.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    A pair of bright eyes with a dozen glances suffice to subdue a man; to enslave him, and enflame him; to make him even forget; they dazzle him so that the past becomes straightway dim to him; and he so prizes them that he would give all his life to possess 'em.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    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!.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    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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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    As if the ray which travels from the sun would reach me sooner than the man who blacks my boots.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

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

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    As nature made every man with a nose and eyes of his own, she gave him a character of his own, too; and yet we, O foolish race! must try our very best to ape some one or two of our neighbors, whose ideas fit us no more than their breeches!

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

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

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    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.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    At that comfortable tavern on Pontchartrain we had a bouillabaisse than which a better was never eaten at Marseilles; and not the least headache in the morning, I give you my word; on the contrary, you only wake with a sweet refreshing thirst for claret and water.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    A woman may possess the wisdom and chastity of Minerva, and we give no heed to her, if she has a plain face. What folly will not a pair of bright eyes make pardonable? What dullness may not red lips are sweet accents render pleasant? And so, with their usual sense of justice, ladies argue that because a woman is handsome, therefore she is a fool. O ladies, ladies! there are some of you who are neither handsome nor wise.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    A woman with fair opportunities, and without an absolute hump, may marry whom she likes. Only let us be thankful that the darlings are like the beasts of the field, and don't know their own power. They would overcome us entirely if they did.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    A woman with fair opportunities, and without an absolute hump, may marry WHOM SHE LIKES.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    Bad husbands will make bad wives.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    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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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    Benevolence and feeling ennoble the most trifling actions.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    Bravery never goes out of fashion.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    Certain corpuscles, denominated Christmas Books, with the ostensible intention of swelling the tide of exhilaration, or other expansive emotions, incident upon the exodus of the old and the inauguration of the New Year.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    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.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

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

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    Charming Alnaschar visions! it is the happy privilege of youth to construct you.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    Choose a good disagreeable friend, if you be wise--a surly, steady, economical, rigid fellow.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    Come children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    Come forward, some great marshal, and organize equality in society, and your rod shall swallow up all the juggling old court gold-sticks

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    Could the best and kindest of us who depart from the earth have an opportunity of revisiting it, I suppose he or she (assuming that any Vanity Fair feelings subsist in the sphere whither we are bound) would have a pang of mortification at finding how soon our survivors were consoled.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

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

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    Despair is perfectly compatible with a good dinner, I promise you.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    Dinner was made for eating, not for talking.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    Do not be in a hurry to succeed. What would you have to live for afterwards? Better make the horizon your goal; it will always be ahead of you.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    Everybody in Vanity Fair must have remarked how well those live who are comfortably and thoroughly in debt; how they deny themselves nothing; how jolly and easy they are in their minds.

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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    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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    William Makepeace Thackeray

    Except for the young or very happy, I can't say I am sorry for anyone who dies.