William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes

If a secret history of books could be written, and the author's private thoughts and meanings noted down alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would become interesting, and dull tales excite the reader!

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

What stories are new? All types of all characters march through all fables.

The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it, and it will in turn look sourly upon you; laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly kind companion; and so let all young persons take their choice.

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

He that has ears to hear, let him stuff them with cotton.

Alas! we are the sport of destiny.

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.

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!

There are other books in a man's library besides Ovid, and after dawdling ever so long at a woman's knee, one day he gets up and is free. We have all been there; we have all had the fever--the strongest and the smallest, from Samson, Hercules, Rinaldo, downward: but it burns out, and you get well.

A person can't help their birth.

it is the ordinary lot of people to have no friends if they themselves care for nobody

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

Life is soul's nursery- its training place for the destinies of eternity.

Diffidence is a sort of false modesty.

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.

How hard it is to make an Englishman acknowledge that he is happy! Pendennis. Book ii. Chap. xxxi.

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.

Oh, brother wearers of motley, are there not moments when one grows sick of grinning and trembling and the jingling of cap and bells?

It's a great comfort to some people to groan over their imaginary ills.

'Tis strange what a man may do, and a woman yet think him an angel.

Money has only a different value in the eyes of each.

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.

Bravery never goes out of fashion.

People who do not know how to laugh are always pompous and self-conceited.

The best of women are hypocrites.

Werther had a love for Charlotte Such as words could never utter; Would you know how first he met her? She was cutting bread and butter.

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

To forego even ambition when the end is gained - who can say this is not greatness?

We have only to change the point of view and the greatest action looks mean.

When I walk with you I feel as if I had a flower in my buttonhole.

How grateful are we--how touched a frank and generous heart is for a kind word extended to us in our pain! The pressure of a tender hand nerves a man for an operation, and cheers him for the dreadful interview with the surgeon.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It is only hope which is real, and reality is a bitterness and a deceit.

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

Taste is something quite different from fashion, superior to fashion.

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

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.

Never marry with the expectation of changing a person.

Oh, those women! They nurse and cuddle their presentiments, and make darlings of their ugliest thoughts.

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

Society having ordained certain customs, men are bound to obey the law of society, and conform to its harmless orders.

It is an awful thing to get a glimpse, as one sometimes does, when the time is past, of some little, little wheel which works the whole mighty machinery of fate, and see how our destinies turn on a minute's delay or advance.

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

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.