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William Makepeace Thackeray QUOTES

William Makepeace Thackeray QUOTES

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

― William Makepeace Thackeray

2 " Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied? "

― William Makepeace Thackeray , Vanity Fair

3 " Here is a minute. It may be my love is dead, but here is a minute to kneel over the grave and pray by it. "

― William Makepeace Thackeray , The Virginians Volume II

4 " It was in the reign of George II. that the above-named personages lived and quarrelled ; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now "

― William Makepeace Thackeray , Barry Lyndon

5 " 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 , The History of Henry Esmond, Esq.

6 " I have long gone about with a conviction on my mind that I had a work to do—a Work, if you like, with a great W; a Purpose to fulfil; ... a Great Social Evil to Discover and to Remedy. "

― William Makepeace Thackeray , The Book of Snobs

7 " 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 , Vanity Fair

8 " 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 , Vanity Fair

9 " It may be whispered to those uninitiated people who are anxious to know the habits and make the acquaintance of men of letters, that there are no race of people who talk about books, or, perhaps, who read books, so little as literary men. "

― William Makepeace Thackeray , The History of Pendennis: His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy

10 " 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 , Vanity Fair

11 " In a word, in adversity she was the best of comforters, in good fortune the most troublesome of friends... "

― William Makepeace Thackeray , Vanity Fair

12 " Though my hair has grown grey now, and my sight dim, and my heart cold with years, and ennui, and disappointment, and treachery of friends, and yet I have but to lean back in my arm-chair and think, and those sweet figures comes rising up before me out of the past, with their smiles, and their kindnesses, and their bright tender eyes! "

― William Makepeace Thackeray

13 " A lady who sets her heart upon a lad in uniform must prepare to change lovers pretty quickly, or her life will be but a sad one. "

― William Makepeace Thackeray , Barry Lyndon

14 " think of the condition of Europe for twenty years before, where people were fighting, not by thousands, but by millions; each one of whom as he struck his enemy wounded horribly some other innocent heart far away. "

― William Makepeace Thackeray

15 " Revenge may be wicked, but it’s natural. "

― William Makepeace Thackeray , Vanity Fair

16 " His Scotch bear-leader, Mr Boswell, was a butt of the first quality. "

― William Makepeace Thackeray , Barry Lyndon

17 " She had not character enough to take to drinking, and moaned about, slip-shod and in curl-papers, all day. "

― William Makepeace Thackeray , Vanity Fair

18 " Indeed, for my own part, though I have been repeatedly told by persons for whom I have the greatest respect, that Miss Brown is an insignificant chit, and Mrs. White has nothing but her petit minois chiffonne, and Mrs. Black has not a word to say for herself; yet I know that I have had the most delightful conversations with Mrs. Black (of course, my dear Madam, they are inviolable): I see all the men in a cluster round Mrs. White's chair: all the young fellows battling to dance with Miss Brown; and so I am tempted to think that to be despised by her sex is a very great compliment to a woman. "

― William Makepeace Thackeray , Vanity Fair

19 " ... 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 , Vanity Fair

20 " It is those who injure women who get the most kindness from them. "

― William Makepeace Thackeray , Vanity Fair