William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes

194 Sourced Quotes

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

William Makepeace Thackeray
Happiest time of youth and life, when love is first spoken and returned; when the dearest eyes are daily shining welcome, and the fondest lips never tire of whispering their sweet secrets; when the parting look that accompanies "Good night!" gives delightful warning of tomorrow.

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
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
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.

William Makepeace Thackeray
Charming Alnaschar visions! it is the happy privilege of youth to construct you.

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
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
You must not judge hastily or vulgarly of Snobs: to do so shows that you are yourself a Snob.

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
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
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
If dying, I yet live in a tender heart or two; nor am I lost and hopeless living, if a sainted departed soul still loves and prays for me.

William Makepeace Thackeray
Almost all women will give a sympathizing hearing to men who are in love. Be they ever so old, they grow young again with that conversation, and renew their own early times.

William Makepeace Thackeray
Society having ordained certain customs, men are bound to obey the law of society, and conform to its harmless orders.

William Makepeace Thackeray
Our measure of rewards and punishments is most partial and incomplete, absurdly inadequate, utterly worldly; and we wish to continue it into the next world. Into that next and awful world we strive to pursue men, and send after them our impotent paltry verdicts of condemnation or acquittal. We set up our paltry little rod to measure heaven immeasurable.

William Makepeace Thackeray
Oh, my young friends, how delightful is the beginning of a love-business, and how undignified, sometimes, the end!

William Makepeace Thackeray
The death of a child occasions a passion of grief and frantic tears, such as your end, brother reader, will never inspire.

William Makepeace Thackeray
Lucky he who has been educated to bear his fate, whatsoever it may be, by an early example of uprightness, and a childish training in honor.

William Makepeace Thackeray
To be beautiful is enough! if a woman can do that well who should demand more from her? You don't want a rose to sing.

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
There are other books in a man's library besides Ovid, and after dawdling ever so long at a woman's knee, one day he gets up and is free. We have all been there; we have all had the fever--the strongest and the smallest, from Samson, Hercules, Rinaldo, downward: but it burns out, and you get well.

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
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
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
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
Certain it is that scandal is good brisk talk, whereas praise of one's neighbor is by no means lively hearing. An acquaintance grilled, scored, devilled, and served with mustard and cayenne pepper excites the appetite; whereas a slice of cold friend with currant jelly is but a sickly, unrelishing meat.

William Makepeace Thackeray
Every man ought to be in love a few times in his life, and to have a smart attack of the fever. You are better for it when it is over: the better for your misfortune, if you endure it with a manly heart; how much the better for success, if you win it and a good wife into the bargain!

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