William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes - Page 8

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To describe love-making is immoral and immodest; you know it is. To describe it as it really is, or would appear to you and me as lookers-on, would be to describe the most dreary farce, to chronicle the most tautological twaddle. To take note of sighs, hand-squeezes, looks at the moon, and so forth--does this business become our dignity as historians? Come away from those foolish young people--they don't want us; and dreary as their farce is, and tautological as their twaddle, you may be sure it amuses them, and that they are happy enough without us.

William Makepeace Thackeray

Love, Moon, Hands

William Makepeace Thackeray (1873). “Works”, p.292

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Everybody in Vanity Fair must have remarked how well those live who are comfortably and thoroughly in debt; how they deny themselves nothing; how jolly and easy they are in their minds.

William Makepeace Thackeray

Vanity, Mind, Debt

William Makepeace Thackeray (1853). “Vanity Fair: A Novel Without a Hero”, p.177

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Nature has written a letter of credit upon some men's faces that is honored wherever presented. You cannot help trusting such men. Their very presence gives confidence. There is promise to pay in their faces which gives confidence and you prefer it to another man's endorsement. Character is credit.

William Makepeace Thackeray

Character, Men, Giving

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Humor is the mistress of tears.

William Makepeace Thackeray

Humor, Mistress, Tears

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I suppose as long as novels last, and authors aim at interesting their public, there must always be in the story a virtuous and gallant hero; a wicked monster, his opposite; and a pretty girl, who finds a champion. Bravery and virtue conquer beauty; and vice, after seeming to triumph through a certain number of pages, is sure to be discomfited in the last volume, when justice overtakes him, and honest folks come by their own.

William Makepeace Thackeray

Girl, Hero, Opposites

William Makepeace Thackeray (1869). “The four Georges. The English humorists. Roundabout papers”, p.158

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That acknowledgment of weakness which we make in imploring to be relieved from hunger and from temptation is surely wisely put in our daily prayer. Think of it, you who are rich, and take heed how you turn a beggar away.

William Makepeace Thackeray

Prayer, Thinking, Temptation

William Makepeace Thackeray (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of William Makepeace Thackeray (Illustrated)”, p.5638, Delphi Classics

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Perhaps there is no greater test of a man's regularity and easiness of conscience than his readiness to face the postman. Blessed is he who is made happy by the sound of a rat-tat! The good are eager for it; but the naughty tremble at the sound thereof.

William Makepeace Thackeray

Blessed, Men, Naughty

William Makepeace Thackeray (2015). “The History of Pendennis: Christie's Collections”, p.537, 谷月社

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Dinner was made for eating, not for talking.

William Makepeace Thackeray

Food, Talking, Cooking

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The ladies--Heaven bless them!--are, as a general rule, coquettes from babyhood upwards.

William Makepeace Thackeray

Heaven, Coquette, Bless

William Makepeace Thackeray (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of William Makepeace Thackeray (Illustrated)”, p.29, Delphi Classics

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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

Men, Heaven, Wish

William Makepeace Thackeray (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of William Makepeace Thackeray (Illustrated)”, p.1951, Delphi Classics

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Next to the very young, I suppose the very old are the most selfish.

William Makepeace Thackeray

Selfish, Selfishness, Next

"The Virginians: A Tale of the Last Century".

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When a mother, as fond mothers will; vows that she knows every thought in her daughter's heart, I think she pretends to know a great deal too much.

William Makepeace Thackeray

Mother, Daughter, Heart

William Makepeace Thackeray (1872). “The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family”, p.197

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If you had told Sycorax that her son Caliban was as handsome as Apollo, she would have been pleased, witch as she was.

William Makepeace Thackeray

Son, Handsome, Apollo

William Makepeace Thackeray (1849). “Vanity fair. With illustr. by the author”, p.19

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She lived in her past life — every letter seemed to recall some circumstance of it. How well she remembered them all! His looks and tones, his dress, what he said and how — these relics and remembrances of dead affection were all that were left her in the world.

William Makepeace Thackeray

Past, Remembrance, World

"Complete Works of William Makepeace Thackeray".

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He was always thinking of his brother's soul, or of the souls of those who differed with him in opinion: it is a sort of comfort which many of the serious give themselves.

William Makepeace Thackeray

Brother, Thinking, Giving

William Makepeace Thackeray (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of William Makepeace Thackeray (Illustrated)”, p.618, Delphi Classics

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Next to the young, I suppose the very old are the most selfish. Alas, the heart hardens as the blood ceases to run. The cold snow strikes down from the head, and checks the glow of feeling. Who wants to survive into old age after abdicating all his faculties one by one, and be sans teeth, sans eyes, sans memory, sans hope, sans sympathy?

William Makepeace Thackeray

Running, Memories, Selfish

William Makepeace Thackeray (2008). “The Virginians: A Tale of the Last Century: Easyread Super Large 20pt Edition”, p.353, ReadHowYouWant.com

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If love lives through all life; and survives through all sorrow; and remains steadfast with us through all changes; and in all darkness of spirit burns brightly; and, if we die, deplores us for ever, and loves still equally; and exists with the very last gasp and throb of the faithful bosom--whence it passes with the pure soul, beyond death; surely it shall be immortal!

William Makepeace Thackeray

Love, Faithful, Soul

William Makepeace Thackeray (2015). “The Newcomes: Thackeray Collections”, p.446, 谷月社

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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

Lying, Acceptance, Deceit

William Makepeace Thackeray (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of William Makepeace Thackeray (Illustrated)”, p.1216, Delphi Classics

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For my part, I believe that remorse is the least active of all a man's moral senses,--the very easiest to be deadened when wakened, and in some never wakened at all.

William Makepeace Thackeray

Believe, Men, Moral

William Makepeace Thackeray (1853). “Vanity Fair: A Novel Without a Hero”, p.354

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What woman, however old, has not the bridal-favours and raiment stowed away, and packed in lavender, in the inmost cupboards of her heart?

William Makepeace Thackeray

Heart, Lavender, Favour

William Makepeace Thackeray (1859). “The Oxford Thackeray: With Illus”, p.339

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He that has ears to hear, let him stuff them with cotton.

William Makepeace Thackeray

Ears, Cotton, Stuff

William Makepeace Thackeray (2015). “The Virginians: Christie's Collections”, p.315, 谷月社

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What is it to be a gentleman? Is it to be honest, to be gentle, to be generous, to be brave, to be wise, and, possessing all these qualities, to exercise them in the most graceful outward manner? Ought a gentleman to be a loyal son, a true husband, an honest father? Ought his life to be decent, his bills to be paid, his taste to be high and elegant, his aims in life lofty and noble?

William Makepeace Thackeray

Wise, Husband, Father

William Makepeace Thackeray (2008). “Contributions to Punch, Etc.”, p.311, Wildside Press LLC

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Our great thoughts, our great affections, the truths of our life, never leave us. Surely they can not separate from our consciousness, shall follow it whithersoever that shall go, and are of their nature divine and immortal.

William Makepeace Thackeray

Life, Divinity, Affection

William Makepeace Thackeray (2014). “Henry Esmond: The English Humourists; The Four Georges”, p.341, Simon and Schuster

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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

Doubt, Quality, World

William Makepeace Thackeray (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of William Makepeace Thackeray (Illustrated)”, p.899, Delphi Classics

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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

Fall, Doubt, Wicked

The Newcomes ch. 20 (1853 - 1855)

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Born: July 18, 1811
Died: December 24, 1863
Occupation: Novelist
Cite this Page: Citation

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