To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
Bravery never goes out of fashion.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
Presently we were aware of an odour gradually coming towards us, something musky,
savoury, mysterious; a hot drowsy smell that lulls the senses, and yet enflames them –
the truffles were coming.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
It is better to love wisely, no doubt: but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love
at all.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
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.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
Mother is the word for God on the hearts and lips of all little children.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
Never lose a chance of saying a kind word.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
Good humour may be said to be one of the very best articles of dress one can wear in
society.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
I never know whether to pity or congratulate a man on coming to his senses.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
To endure is greater than to dare; to tire out hostile fortune; to be daunted by no difficulty;
to keep heart when all have lost it; to go through intrigue spotless; and to forgo even
ambition when the end is gained – who can say this is not greatness?
– William Makepeace Thackeray
Revenge may be wicked, but it’s natural.
– 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
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
‘Tis strange what a man may do, and a woman yet think him an angel.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
Next to the very young, I suppose the very old are the most selfish.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
A good laugh is sunshine in a house.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
Stupid people, people who do not know how to laugh, are always pompous and self-conceited.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
How hard it is to make an Englishman acknowledge that he is happy!
– 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
Women like not only to conquer, but to be conquered.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
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.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
The true pleasure of life is to live with your inferiors.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
One of the great conditions of anger and hatred is, that you must tell and believe lies against
the hated object, in order, as we said, to be consistent.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
Remember, it’s as easy to marry a rich woman as a poor woman.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
Next to excellence is the appreciation of it.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
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!
– William Makepeace Thackeray
This I set down as a positive truth. A woman with fair opportunities, and without a positive
hump, may marry whom she likes.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
Follow your honest convictions and be strong.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
I would rather make my name than inherit it.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
To be a gentleman is to be honest, to be gentle, to be generous, to be brave, to be wise,
and possessing all those qualities to exercise them in the most graceful outward manner.
– William Makepeace Thackeray