William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes

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

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

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.

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

Malice is of the boomerang character, and is apt to turn upon the projector.

Who has not remarked the readiness with which the closest of friends and honestest of men suspect and accuse each other of cheating when they fall out on money matters? Everybody does it. Everybody is right, I suppose, and the world is a rogue.

There is a skeleton in every house.

Remember, it's as easy to marry a rich woman as a poor woman.

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

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.

Under the magnetism of friendship the modest man becomes bold; the shy, confident; the lazy, active; and the impetuous, prudent and peaceful.

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

In the midst of friends, home, and kind parents, she was alone.

I set it down as a maxim, that it is good for a man to live where he can meet his betters, intellectual and social.

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!

He who meanly admires mean things is a Snob.

It is all very well for you, who have probably never seen any spiritual manifestations, to talk as you do; but if you had seen what I have witnessed you would hold a different opinion.

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.

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!

...the greatest tyrants over women are women.

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

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.

There is no man that can teach us to be gentlemen better than Joseph Addison.

The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, familiar things new.

Almost all women have hearts full of pity.

When a mother, as fond mothers will; vows that she knows every thought in her daughter's heart, I think she pretends to know a great deal too much.

Frequent the company of your betters.

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?

To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best.

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.

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.

Novelty has charms that our minds can hardly withstand.

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

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.

I will bring order from chaos and light from darkness.

It is a friendly heart that has plenty of friends.

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

To see a young couple loving each other is no wonder; but to see an old couple loving each other is the best sight of all.

Vanity Fair is a very vain, wicked, foolish place, full of all sorts of humbugs and falsenesses and pretensions.

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.

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

The little cares, fears, tears, timid misgivings, sleepless fancies of I don't know how many days and nights, were forgotten under one moment's influence of that familiar, irresistible smile.

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

The moral world has no particular objection to vice, but an insuperable repugnance to hearing vice called by its proper name.

What a charming reconciler and peacemaker money is!

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!.

Dinner was made for eating, not for talking.

When a man is in love with one woman in a family, it is astonishing how fond he becomes of every person connected with it.