Quotes from William Makepeace Thackeray

Bravery never goes out of fashion.

Attacking is the only secret. Dare and the world always yields or if it beats you sometimes dare it again and it will succumb.

The death of a child occasions a passion of grief and frantic tears, such as your end, brother reader, will never inspire.

Ah! Vanitas Vanitatum! Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?-Come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out.

What a dignity it gives an old lady, that balance at the bankers! How tenderly we look at her faults if she is a relative; what a kind, good-natured old creature we find her!

Tis not the dying for a faith that's so hard... 'Tis the living up to it that's difficult.

Sure, occasion is the father of most that is good in us.

I want a sofa, as I want a friend, upon which I can repose familiarly. If you can't have intimate terms and freedom with one and the other, they are of no good.

If I mayn't tell you what I feel, what is the use of a friend?

Dinner was made for eating, not for talking

Mr Moss's courtyard is railed in like a cage, lest the gentlemen who are boarding with him should take a fancy to escape from his hospitality.

We should pay as much reverence to youth as we should to age; there are points in which you young folks are altogether our superiors: and I can't help constantly crying out to persons of my own years, when busied about their young people -- leave them alone; don't be always meddling with their affairs, which they can manage for themselves; don't be always insisting upon managing their boats, and putting your oars in the water with theirs.

Remember, it's as easy to marry a rich woman as a poor woman.

Tis strange what a man may do, and a woman yet think him an angel.

To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best.