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21 " A woman with fair opportunities, and without an absolute hump, may marry WHOM SHE LIKES. "
― William Makepeace Thackeray , Vanity Fair
22 " Money has only a different value in the eyes of each. "
23 " To part with money is a sacrifice beyond almost all men endowed with a sense of order. There is scarcely any man alive who does not think himself meritorious for giving his neighbour five pounds. Thriftless gives, not from a beneficent pleasure in giving, but from a lazy delight in spending. He would not deny himself one enjoyment; not his opera-stall, not his horse, not his dinner, not even the pleasure of giving Lazarus the five pounds. "
― William Makepeace Thackeray
24 " If a man's character is to be abused, say what you will, there's nobody like a relative to do the business. "
25 " 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 , Barry Lyndon
26 " 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. "
27 " Good humor may be said to be one of the very best articles of dress one can wear in society. "
― William Makepeace Thackeray ,
28 " 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 , The Book of Snobs
29 " Heaven help us! The girls have only to turn the tables,and say of one of their own sex,'She is as vain as a man,' and they will have perfect reason. 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 fascinations, as any coquette in the world. "
30 " Never lose a chance of saying a kind word. "
31 " In the midst of friends, home, and kind parents, she was alone. "
32 " People hate as they love, unreasonably. "
33 " The moral world has no particular objection to vice, but an insuperable repugnance to hearing vice called by its proper name. "
34 " 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? "
35 " 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. "
36 " 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. "
37 " 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. "
38 " Of all the vices which degrade the human character, Selfishness is the most odious and contemptible. An undue love of Self leads to the most mon¬strous crimes and occasions the greatest misfortunes both in States and Families. As a selfish man will impoverish his family and often bring them to ruin, so a selfish king brings ruin on his people and often plunges them into war. "
39 " The wicked are wicked, no doubt, and they go astray and they fall, and they come by their deserts; but who can tell the mischief which the very virtuous do? "
40 " 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. "