William Makepeace Thackeray (1811 – 1863)
English Victorian writer.
Except for the young or very happy, I can't say I am sorry for any one who dies.
Remember, it's as easy to marry a rich woman as a poor woman.
This Bouillabaisse a noble dish is —
A sort of soup or broth, or brew,
Or hotchpotch of all sorts of fishes,
That Greenwich never could outdo.
It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all. Some of us can't: and are proud of our impotence, too.
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.
Ho, pretty page, with the dimpled chin
That never has known the barber’s shear,
All your wish is woman to win,
This is the way that boys begin.
Wait till you come to Forty Year.
I think I could be a good woman if I had five thousand a year.
Werther had a love for Charlotte
Such as words could never utter;
Would you know how first he met her?
She was cutting bread and butter.
If a man's character is to be abused, say what you will, there's nobody like a relation to do the business.
He who meanly admires mean things is a Snob.
Next to the very young, I suppose the very old are the most selfish.
How hard it is to make an Englishman acknowledge that he is happy!
She looks so haughty that I should have thought her a princess at the very least, with a pedigree reaching as far back as the Deluge. But this lady was no better born than many other ladies who give themselves airs; and all sensible people laughed at her absurd pretensions.
Whenever he met a great man he grovelled before him, and my-lorded him as only a free-born Briton can do.
'Tis not the dying for a faith that's so hard, Master Harry — every man of every nation has done that — 'tis the living up to it that is difficult, as I know to my cost.
It is to the middle class we must look for the safety of England.
The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it, and it will in turn look sourly upon you; laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly kind companion; and so let all young persons take their choice.
Women like not only to conquer, but to be conquered.
I never know whether to pity or congratulate a man on coming to his senses.
Stupid people, people who do not know how to laugh, are always pompous and self-conceited.