Thackeray Quotes & Sayings

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. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Revenge may be wicked, but it's natural. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Let me whisper my belief, entre nous, that of those eminent philosophers who cry out against parsons the loudest, there are not many who have got their knowledge of the church by going thither often. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Next to eating good dinners, a healthy man with a benevolent turn of mind, must like, I think, to read about them. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Fairy roses, fairy rings, turn out sometimes troublesome things. — William Makepeace Thackeray

The tallest and the smallest among us are so alike diminutive and pitifully base, it is a meanness to calculate the difference. — William Makepeace Thackeray

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

I never knew whether to pity or congratulate a man on coming to his senses. — William Makepeace Thackeray

The wine is drawn, M. le Marquis...we must drink it.' — William Makepeace Thackeray

I believe that remorse is the least active of all a man's moral senses. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Who knows but we may count among our intellectual chickens
Like them an Earl of Thackeray and p'raps a Duke of
Dickens — W.S. Gilbert

Let the man who has to make his fortune in life remember this maxim. Attacking is his only secret. Dare, and the world always yields: or, if it beat you sometimes, dare again, and it will succumb. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Sure, love vincit omnia; is immeasurably above all ambition, more precious than wealth, more noble than name. He knows not life who knows not that: he hath not felt the highest faculty of the soul who hath not enjoyed it. — William Makepeace Thackeray

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. — William Makepeace Thackeray

If people only made prudent marriages, what a stop to population there would be! — William Makepeace Thackeray

I like Mr. Dickens' books much better than yours, Papa. Said one of Thackeray's daughters. — David Markson

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. — William Makepeace Thackeray

The world is full of love and pity, I say. Had there been less suffering, there would have been less kindness. — William Makepeace Thackeray

A good laugh is sunshine in the house. — William Makepeace Thackeray

He firmly believed that everything he did was right, that he ought on all occasions to have his own way - and like the sting of a wasp or serpent his hatred rushed out armed and poisonous against anything like opposition. He was proud of his hatred as of everything else. 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? As — William Makepeace Thackeray

There is a skeleton in every house. — William Makepeace Thackeray

In effective womanly beauty form is more than face, and manner more than either. — William Makepeace Thackeray

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

A gentleman sitting in spectacles before an old ledger, and writing down pitiful remembrances of his own condition, is a quaint and ridiculous object. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Life is the soul's nursery. — William Makepeace Thackeray

If you take temptations into account, who is to say that he is better than his neighbour? A comfortable career of prosperity, if it does not make people honest, at least keeps them so. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Let us be very gentle with our neighbors' failings, and forgive our friends their debts as we hope ourselves to be forgiven. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Every man, however brief or inglorious may have been his academical career, must remember with kindness and tenderness the old university comrades and days. The young man's life is just beginning: the boy's leading-strings are cut, and he has all the novel delights and dignities of freedom. He has no idea of cares yet, or of bad health, or of roguery, or poverty, or to-morrow's disappointment. — William Makepeace Thackeray

And, perhaps, Mr. Dobbin's sentimental Amelia was no more like the real one than this absurd little print which he cherished. But what man in love, of us, is better informed? - or is he much happier when he sees and owns his delusion? — William Makepeace Thackeray

There are many sham diamonds in this life which pass for real, and vice versa. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Those who are gone, you have. Those who departed loving you, love you still; and you love them always. They are not really gone, those dear hearts and true; they are only gone into the next room; and you will presently get up and follow them, and yonder door will close upon you, and you will be no more seen. — William Makepeace Thackeray

So there was splendour and wealth, but no great happiness perchance, behind the tall caned portals of Gaunt House with its smoky coronets and ciphers. The feasts there were of the grandest in London, but there was not overmuch content therewith, except among the guests who sat at my lord's table. Had he not been so great a Prince very few possibly would have visited him; but in Vanity Fair the sins of very great personages are looked at indulgently. — William Makepeace Thackeray

This Bouillabaisse a noble dish is - A sort of soup or broth, or brew, Or hotchpotch of all sorts of fishes, That Greenwich never could outdo; Green herbs, red peppers, mussels, saffron, Soles, onions, garlic, roach, and dace; All these you eat at Terre's tavern, In that one dish of Bouillabaisse. — William Makepeace Thackeray

But, lo! and just as the coach drove off, Miss Sharp put her pale face out of the window and actually flung the book back into the garden. — William Makepeace Thackeray

What stories are new? All types of all characters march through all fables. — William Makepeace Thackeray

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. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Perhaps as he was lying awake then, his life may have passed before him
his early hopeful struggles, his manly successes and prosperity, his downfall in his declining years, and his present helpless condition
no chance of revenge against Fortune, which had had the better of him
neither name nor money to bequeath
a spent-out, bootless life of defeat and disappointment, and the end here! Which, I wonder, brother reader, is the better lot, to die prosperous and famous, or poor and disappointed? To have, and to be forced to yield; or to sink out of life, having played and lost the game? That must be a strange feeling, when a day of our life comes and we say, To-morrow, success or failure won't matter much, and the sun will rise, and all the myriads of mankind go to their work or their pleasure as usual, but I shall be out of the turmoil. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Benevolence and feeling ennoble the most trifling actions. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Bad husbands will make bad wives. — William Makepeace Thackeray

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? — William Makepeace Thackeray

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

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. — William Makepeace Thackeray

All of us have read of what occured during that interval. The tale is in every Englishman's mouth; and you and I, who were children when the great battle was won and lost, are never tired of hearing and recounting the history of that famous action. Its rememberance rankles still in the bosoms of millions of the countrymen of those brave men who lost the day. They pant for an opportunity of revenging that humiliation; and if a contest, ending in a victory on their part, should ensue, elating them in their turn, and leaving its cursed legacy of hatred and rage behind to us, there is no end to the so-called glory and shame, and to the alterations of successful and unsuccessful murder, in which two high-spirited nations might engage. Centuries hence, we Frenchmen and Englishmen might be boasting and killing each other still, carrying out bravely the Devil's code of honor. — William Makepeace Thackeray

If he had but a little more brains, she thought to herself, I might make something of him; but she never let him perceive the opinion she had of him; listened with indefatigable complacency to his stories of the stable and the mess; laughed at all his jokes...When he came home, she was alert and happy; when he went out she pressed him to go; when he stayed at home, she played and sang for him, made him good drinks, superintended his dinner, warmed his slippers, and steeped his soul in comfort. The best of women {I have heard my grandmother say) are hypocrites. We don't know how much they hide from us: how watchful they are when they seem most artless and confidential: how often those frank smile which they wear so easily are traps to cajole or elude or disarm--I don't mean in your mere coquettes, but your domestic models and paragons of female virute. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Some very dull and sad people have genius though the world may not count it as such; a genius for love, or for patience, or for prayer, maybe. We know the divine spark is here and there in the world: who shall say under what manifestations, or humble disguise! — Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie

One likes to think that there is some fantastic limbo for the children of imagination, some strange, impossible place where the beaux of Fielding may still make love to the belles of Richardson, where Scott's heroes still may strut, Dickens's delightful Cockneys still raise a laugh, and Thackeray's worldlings continue to carry on their reprehensible careers. Perhaps in some humble corner of such a Valhalla, Sherlock and his Watson may for a time find a place, while some more astute sleuth with some even less astute comrade may fill the stage which they have vacated. — Arthur Conan Doyle

All is vanity, nothing is fair. — William Makepeace Thackeray

To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best. — William Makepeace Thackeray

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. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Will you say England belongs to other nationals because they are there in largenumbers? — Raj Thackeray

The bearded creatures are quite as eager for praise, quite as finikin over their toilets, quite as proud of their personal advantages, quite as conscious of their powers of fascination, as any coquette in the world. — 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. — William Makepeace Thackeray

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. — William Makepeace Thackeray

If she did not wish to lead a virtuous life, at least she desired to enjoy a character for virtue, and we know that no lady in the genteel world can possess this desideratum, until she has put on a train and feathers and has been presented to her Sovereign at Court. From that august interview they come out stamped as honest women. The Lord Chamberlain gives them a certificate of virtue. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Long brooding over those lost pleasures exaggerates their charm and sweetness. — William Makepeace Thackeray

It is a friendly heart that has plenty of friends. — William Makepeace Thackeray

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

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

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

Since the days of Adam, there has been hardly a mischief done in this world but a woman has been at the bottom of it. — William Makepeace Thackeray

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

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

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

Terror attacks in Mumbai have grown due to increase in the population of the north Indians in the city. — Raj Thackeray

Tis hard with respect to Beauty, that its possessor should not have a life enjoyment of it, but be compelled to resign it after, at the most, some forty years lease — William Makepeace Thackeray

The Shiv Sena was the handiwork of a cartoonist named Bal Thackeray, whose main target was south Indians, whom he claimed were taking away jobs from the natives. Thackeray lampooned dhoti-clad 'Madrasis' in his writings and drawings; while his followers attacked Udupi restaurants and homes of Tamil and Telugu speakers. — Ramachandra Guha

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

Humor is wit and love. — William Makepeace Thackeray

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

The play is done; the curtain drops,
Slow falling to the prompter's bell
A moment yet the actor stops
And looks around to say farewell. — William Makepeace Thackeray

The book of female logic is blotted all over with tears, and Justice in their courts is forever in a passion. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Never lose a chance of saying a kind word. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Sena under the leadership of Uddhav Thackeray has failed. It is a party on the decline, and that decline started the day Maharashtra Navnirman Sena was formed. — Sharad Pawar

Successful people aren't born that way. They become successful by establishing the habit of doing things unsuccessful people don't like to do. The successful people don't always like these things themselves; they just get on and do them. — William Makepeace Thackeray

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

Mother is God in the eyes of a child. — William Makepeace Thackeray

If fun is good, truth is still better, and love best of all. — William Makepeace Thackeray

When one fib becomes due as it were, you must forge another to take up the old acceptance; and so the stock of your lies in circulation inevitably multiplies, and the danger of detection increases every day. — William Makepeace Thackeray

The thorn in the cushion of the editorial chair. — William Makepeace Thackeray

He thought about a thousand things but these in his rapid walk to his quarters - his past life and future chances - the fate which might be before him - the wife, the child perhaps, from whom unseen he might be about to part. Oh, how he wished that night's work undone! and that with a clear conscience at least he might say farewell to the tender and guileless being by whose love he had set such little store! — William Makepeace Thackeray

I feel Mahatma Gandhi's non-violence was for the intelligent, educated British.It was not for those who don't understand this language. — Raj Thackeray

Have you ever had a difference with a dear friend? How his letters, written in the period of love and confidence, sicken and rebuke you! What a dreary mourning it is to dwell upon those vehement protests of dead affection! What lying epitaphs they make over the corpse of love! What dark, cruel comments upon Life and Vanities! Most of us have got or written drawers full of them. They are closet-skeletons which we keep and shun — William Makepeace Thackeray

He first selected the smallest one ... and then bowed his head as though he were saying grace. Opening his mouth very wide, he struggled for a moment, after which all was over. I shall never forget the comic look of despair he cast upon the other five over-occupied shells. I asked him how he felt. 'Profoundly grateful,' he said, 'as if I had swallowed a small baby.' — William Makepeace Thackeray

Love seems to survive life, and to reach beyond it. I think we take it with us past the grave. Do we not still give it to those who have left us? May we not hope that they feel it for us, and that we shall leave it here in one or two fond bosoms, when we also are gone? — William Makepeace Thackeray

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

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. — William Makepeace Thackeray

A fool can no more see his own folly than he can see his ears. — 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. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Thackeray is careful not to present a protagonist who is malevolently evil from birth; to trace a figure like this is unrewarding certainly to novelist and reader alike. — Martin J. Anisman

When one man has been under very remarkable obligations to another, with whom he subsequently quarrels, a common sense of decency, as it were, makes of the former a much severer enemy than a mere stranger would be. To account for your own hard-heartedness and ingratitude in such a case, you are bound to prove the other party's crime. It is not that you are selfish, brutal, and angry at the failure of a speculation
no, no
it is that your partner has led you into it by the basest treachery and with the most sinister motives. From a mere sense of consistency, a persecutor is bound to show that the fallen man is a villain
otherwise he, the persecutor, is a wretch himself. — William Makepeace Thackeray

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

Frequent the company of your betters. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Who feels injustice, who shrinks before a slight, who has a sense of wrong so acute, and so glowing a gratitude for kindness, as a generous boy? — William Makepeace Thackeray

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

It is better to love wisely, no doubt: but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all — 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. — William Makepeace Thackeray

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. — William Makepeace Thackeray

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. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Hint at the existence of wickedness in a light, easy, and agreeable manner, so that nobody's fine feelings may be offended. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Choose a good disagreeable friend, if you be wise
a surly, steady, economical, rigid fellow. — William Makepeace Thackeray