William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes
Author & Novelist
It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all.
To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best.
Good humor is one of the best articles of dress one can wear in society.
There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write.
The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.
Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.
A good laugh is sunshine in the house.
I never knew whether to pity or congratulate a man on coming to his senses.
When you look at me, when you think of me, I am in paradise.
Whatever you are, be a good one.
Bravery never goes out of fashion.
When I walk with you I feel as if I had a flower in my buttonhole.
Dinner was made for eating, not for talking.
Do not be in a hurry to succeed. What would you have to live for afterwards? Better make the horizon your goal; it will always be ahead of you.
Follow your honest convictions and be strong.
An evil person is like a dirty window, they never let the light shine through.
There are many sham diamonds in this life which pass for real, and vice versa.
Next to excellence is the appreciation of it.
A clever, ugly man every now and then is successful with the ladies, but a handsome fool is irresistible.
It is only hope which is real, and reality is a bitterness and a deceit.
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.
People hate as they love, unreasonably.
It is impossible, in our condition of Society, not to be sometimes a Snob.
People who do not know how to laugh are always pompous and self-conceited.
Let a man who has to make his fortune in life remember this maxim: Attacking is the only secret. Dare and the world yields, or if it beats you sometimes, dare it again and you will succeed.
I would rather make my name than inherit it.
The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, familiar things new.
Despair is perfectly compatible with a good dinner, I promise you.
If a secret history of books could be written, and the author's private thoughts and meanings noted down alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would become interesting, and dull tales excite the reader!
The book of female logic is blotted all over with tears, and Justice in their courts is forever in a passion.
Kindnesses are easily forgotten; but injuries! what worthy man does not keep those in mind?
Remember, it's as easy to marry a rich woman as a poor woman.
It is to the middle-class we must look for the safety of England.
'Tis strange what a man may do, and a woman yet think him an angel.
Except for the young or very happy, I can't say I am sorry for anyone who dies.
Next to the young, I suppose the very old are the most selfish.