William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes

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

There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up the pen to write. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

His Scotch bear-leader, Mr Boswell, was a butt of the first quality. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

Pray, dear madam, another glass; it is Christmas time, it will do you no harm. ~ 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

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

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. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

Then sing as Martin Luther sang, As Doctor Martin Luther sang, "Who loves not wine, woman and song, He is a fool his whole life long." ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

Isidor thought for a moment he had gone mad, and that he wished his valet to cut his throat. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

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. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

I should like to know what well-constituted mind, merely because it is transitory, dislikes roast beef? ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

The stiff-backed prig, with his dandified airs and West End swagger. ~ 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

Be cautious then, young ladies; be wary how you engage. Be shy of loving frankly; never tell all you feel, or (a better way still), feel very little. See the consequences of being prematurely honest and confiding, and mistrust yourselves and everybody. Get yourselves married as they do in France, where the lawyers are the bridesmaids and confidantes. At any rate, never have any feelings which may make you uncomfortable, or make any promises which you cannot at any required moment command and withdraw. That is the way to get on, and be respected, and have a virtuous character in Vanity Fair. ~ 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

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. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

It is only hope which is real, and reality is a bitterness and a deceit. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

To those great geniuses now in petticoats, who shall write novels for the beloved reader's children, these men and things will be as much legend and history as Nineveh, or Coeur de Lion, or Jack Sheppard. ~ 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

Never lose a chance of saying a kind word. ~ 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

To be rich, to be famous? do these profit a year hence, when other names sound louder than yours, when you lie hidden away under ground, along with the idle titles engraven on your coffin? But only true love lives after you, follows your memory with secret blessings or pervades you, and intercedes for you. Non omnis moriar, if, dying, I yet live in a tender heart or two; nor am lost and hopeless, living, if a sainted departed soul still loves and prays for me. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

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. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

What woman, however old, has not the bridal-favours and raiment stowed away, and packed in lavender, in the inmost cupboards of her heart? ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

We love being in love, that's the truth on't. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

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

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

Miss Sedley was almost as flurried at the act of defiance as Miss Jemima had been; for, consider, it was but one minute that she had left school, and the impressions of six years are not got over in that space of time. Nay, with some persons those awes and terrors of youth last for ever and ever. I know, for instance, an old gentleman of sixty-eight, who said to me one morning at breakfast, with a very agitated countenance, 'I dreamed last night that I was flogged by Dr Raine.' Fancy had carried him back five-and-fifty years in the course of that evening. Dr Raine and his rod were just as awful to him in his heart then, at sixty-eight, as they had been at thirteen. If the Doctor, with a large birch, had appeared bodily to him, even at the age of threescore and eight, and had said in awful voice, 'Boy, take down your pants ... ' Well, well ... ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

What part of confidante has that poor teapot played ever since the kindly plant was introduced among us! Why myriads of women have cried over it, to be sure! [ ... ] Nature meant very kindly by women when she made the tea plant; and with a little thought, what series of pictures and groups of the fancy may conjure up and assemble round the teapot and cup. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

If I mayn't tell you what I feel, what is the use of a friend? ~ 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 hidden and awful Wisdom which apportions the destinies of mankind is pleased so to humiliate and cast down the tender, good, and wise; and to set up the selfish, the foolish, or the wicked. Oh, be humble, my brother, in your prosperity! Be gentle with those who are less lucky, if not more deserving. Think, what right have you to be scornful, whose virtue is a deficiency of temptation, whose success may be a chance, whose rank may be an ancestor's accident, whose prosperity is very likely a satire. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

The captain would ... turn off the conversation, like a consummate man of the world, to some topic of general interest, such as the Opera, the Prince's last ball at Carlton House, or the weather - that blessing to society. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

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. ~ 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. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

If fathers are sometimes sulky at the appearance of the destined son-in-law, is it not a fact that mothers become sentimental and, as it were, love their own loves over again. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

I regularly frequent St. George';s, Hanover Square, during the genteel marriage season; and though I have never seen the bridegroom's male friends give way to tears, or the beadles and officiating clergy in any way affected, yet it is not at all uncommon to see women who are not in the least concerned in the operations going on
old ladies who are long past marrying, stout middle-aged females with plenty of sons and daughters, let alone pretty young creatures in pink bonnets, who are on their promotion, and may naturally taken an interest in the ceremony
I say it is quite common to see the women present piping, sobbing, sniffling; hiding their little faces in their little useless pocket-handkerchiefs; and heaving, old and young, with emotion. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

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

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

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

before I was married I didn't care what bills I put my name to, and so long as Moses would wait or Levy would renew for three months, I kept on never minding. But since I'm married, except renewing, of course, I give you my honour I've not touched a bit of stamped paper. ~ 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!. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

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

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

Praise everybody, I say to such: never be squeamish, but speak out your compliment both point-blank in a man's face, and behind his back, when you know there is a reasonable chance of his hearing it again. Never lose a chance of saying a kind word. As Collingwood never saw a vacant place in his estate but he took an acorn out of his pocket and popped it in; so deal with your compliments through life. An acorn costs nothing; but it may sprout into a prodigious bit of timber. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

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

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

The affection of young ladies is of as rapid growth as Jack's beanstalk, and reaches up to the sky in a night. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

I can endure poverty but not shame-neglect but not insult,and insult from you.. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

What qualities are there for which a man gets so speedy a return of applause, as those of bodily superiority, activity, and valour? Time out of mind strength and courage have been the theme of bards and romances; and from the story of Troy down to to-day, poetry has always chosen a soldier for a hero. I wonder is it because men are cowards in heart that they admire bravery so much, and place military valour so far beyond every other quality for reward and worship? ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

Here's a 165-year old but still fitting comment on public officials who are so sure they're right that they'll drive over a cliff rather than compromise:
"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?" William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair: a Novel without a Hero (1848).

The author's middle name really was "Makepeace." As the quote shows, he disliked those who would not. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

It is to the middle-class we must look for the safety of England. ~ 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 ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

Frequent the company of your betters. ~ 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

If you had told Sycorax that her son Caliban was as handsome as Apollo, she would have been pleased, witch as she was. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

Nature has written a letter of credit upon some men's faces that is honored wherever presented. You cannot help trusting such men. Their very presence gives confidence. There is promise to pay in their faces which gives confidence and you prefer it to another man's endorsement. Character is credit. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

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? ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

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

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. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

What is it to be a gentleman? Is it to be honest, to be gentle, to be generous, to be brave, to be wise, and, possessing all these qualities, to exercise them in the most graceful outward manner? Ought a gentleman to be a loyal son, a true husband, an honest father? Ought his life to be decent, his bills to be paid, his taste to be high and elegant, his aims in life lofty and noble? ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

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

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

We are Turks with the affections of our women; and have made them subscribe to our doctrine too. We let their bodies go abroad liberally enough, with smiles and ringlets and pink bonnets to disguise them instead of veils and yakmaks. But their souls must be seen by only one man, and they obey not unwillingly, and consent to remain at home as our slaves - ministering to us and doing drudgery for us. ~ 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

If a man has committed wrong in life, I don't know any moralist more anxious to point his errors out to the world than his own relations ... ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

Lower himself!" says the lady, with a toss of her head. "No man lowers himself by pursuing an honest calling. No man! ~ 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

Next to excellence is the appreciation of it. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

One tires of a page of which every sentence sparkles with points, of a sentimentalist who is always pumping the tears from his eyes or your own. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

One of the great conditions of anger and hatred is, that you must tell and believe lies against the hated object, in order, as we said, to be consistent. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

If success is rare and slow, everybody knows how quick and easy ruin is. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

Picture to yourself, O fair young reader, a worldly, selfish, graceless, thankless, religionless old woman, writhing in pain and fear, and without her wig. Picture her to yourself, and ere you be old, learn to love and pray. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

Almost all women have hearts full of pity. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

Mark to yourself the gradual way in which you have been prepared for, and are now led by an irresistible necessity to enter upon your great labour. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

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. ~ 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

Such people there are living and flourishing in the world - Faithless, Hopeless, Charityless: let us have at them, dear friends, with might and main. Some there are, and very successful too, mere quacks and fools: and it was to combat and expose such as those, no doubt, that Laughter was made, ~ 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

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

Novelty has charms that our mind can hardly withstand. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

I would rather make my name then inherit it. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

What a dignity it gives an old lady, that balance at the bankers! How tenderly we look at her faults if she is a relative; what a kind, good-natured old creature we find her! ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

A cheerful look brings joy to the heart. ~ 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

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

A person can't help their birth. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

There was a picture of the family over the mantelpiece, removed thither from the front room after Mrs. Osborne's death - George was on a pony, the elder sister holding him up a bunch of flowers; the younger led by her mother's hand; all with red cheeks and large red mouths, simpering on each other in the approved family-portrait manner. The mother lay underground now, long since forgotten - the sisters and brother had a hundred different interests of their own, and, familiar still, were utterly estranged from each other. Some few score of years afterwards, when all the parties represented are grown old, what bitter satire there is in those flaunting childish family-portraits, with their farce of sentiment and smiling lies, and innocence so self-conscious and self-satisfied. Osborne's ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

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

What money is better bestowed than that of a schoolboy's tip? How the kindness is recalled by the recipient in after days! It blesses him that gives and him that takes. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

..though Miss Rebecca Sharp has twice had occasion to thank Heaven, it has been, in the first place, for ridding her of some person whom she hated, and secondly, for enabling her to bring her enemies to some sort of perplexity or confusion; neither of which are very amiable motives for religious gratitude, ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

Life without laughing is a dreary blank. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

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. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

We should pay as much reverence to youth as we should to age; there are points in which you young folks are altogether our superiors: and I can't help constantly crying out to persons of my own years, when busied about their young people
leave them alone; don't be always meddling with their affairs, which they can manage for themselves; don't be always insisting upon managing their boats, and putting your oars in the water with theirs. ~ 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. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

Follow your honest convictions and be strong. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

Mrs. O'Dowd, the good housewife, arrayed in curl papers and a camisole, felt that her duty was to act, and not to sleep, at this juncture. "Time enough for that," she said, "when Mick's gone"; and so she packed his travelling valise ready for the march, brushed his cloak, his cap, and other warlike habiliments, set them out in order for him; and stowed away in the cloak pockets a light package of portable refreshments, and a wicker-covered flask or pocket-pistol, containing near a pint of a remarkably sound Cognac brandy, of which she and the Major approved very much; ... Mrs. O'Dowd woke up her Major, and had as comfortable a cup of coffee prepared for him as any made that morning in Brussels. And who is there will deny that this worthy lady's preparations betokened affection as much as the fits of tears and hysterics by which more sensitive females exhibited their love, and that their partaking of this coffee, which they drank together while the bugles were sounding the turn-out and the drums beating in the various quarters of the town, was not more useful and to the purpose than the outpouring of any mere sentiment could be? The consequence was, that the Major appeared on parade quite trim, fresh, and alert, his well-shaved rosy countenance, as he sate on horseback, giving cheerfulness and confidence to the whole corps. All the officers saluted her when the regiment marched by the balcony on which this brave woman stood, and waved them a cheer as they passed; and I daresay ~ William Makepeace Thackeray