William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes

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

~ William Makepeace Thackeray

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~ William Makepeace Thackeray

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

Revenge may be wicked, but it’s natural.

~ William Makepeace Thackeray

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

~ William Makepeace Thackeray

A woman may possess the wisdom and chastity of Minerva, and we give no heed to her, if she has a plain face. What folly will not a pair of bright eyes make pardonable? What dullness may not red lips are sweet accents render pleasant? And so, with their usual sense of justice, ladies argue that because a woman is handsome, therefore she is a fool. O ladies, ladies! there are some of you who are neither handsome nor wise.

~ William Makepeace Thackeray

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

~ William Makepeace Thackeray

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

... 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

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

~ William Makepeace Thackeray

A woman with fair opportunities, and without an absolute hump, may marry WHOM SHE LIKES.

~ William Makepeace Thackeray

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

~ William Makepeace Thackeray

If a man's character is to be abused, say what you will, there's nobody like a relative to do the business.

~ William Makepeace Thackeray

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

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

Good humor may be said to be one of the very best articles of dress one can wear in society.

~ 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

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.

~ William Makepeace Thackeray

Never lose a chance of saying a kind word.

~ William Makepeace Thackeray

In the midst of friends, home, and kind parents, she was alone.

~ William Makepeace Thackeray

People hate as they love, unreasonably.

~ 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

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

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

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

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

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.

~ William Makepeace Thackeray

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?

~ 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

Vanity Fair--Vanity Fair! Here was a man, who could not spell, and did not care to read--who had the habits and the cunning of a boor: whose aim in life was pettifogging: who never had a taste, or emotion, or enjoyment, but what was sordid and foul; and yet he had rank, and honours, and power, somehow: and was a dignitary of the land, and a pillar of the state. He was high sheriff, and rode in a golden coach. Great ministers and statesmen courted him; and in Vanity Fair he had a higher place than the most brilliant genius or spotless virtue.

~ William Makepeace Thackeray

Next to excellence is the appreciation of it.

~ William Makepeace Thackeray

he began to feel that she was very lonely indeed. “If he’d been here,” she said, “those cowards would never have dared to insult me.” She thought about “him” with great sadness and perhaps longing--about his honest, stupid, constant kindness and fidelity; his never-ceasing obedience; his good humour; his bravery and courage. Very likely she cried, for she was particularly lively, and had put on a little extra rouge, when she came down to dinner.

~ William Makepeace Thackeray