Quotes from William Makepeace Thackeray

The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.

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.

A clever, ugly man every now and then is successful with the ladies, but a handsome fool is irresistible.

The pipe draws wisdom from the lips of the philosopher, and shuts up the mouth of the foolish; it generates a style of conversation, contemplative, thoughtful, benevolent, and unaffected.

A snob is that man or woman who is always pretending to be something better--especially richer or more fashionable--than he is.

Under the magnetism of friendship the modest man becomes bold; the shy, confident; the lazy, active; and the impetuous, prudent and peaceful.

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.

Learn to admire rightly; the great pleasure of life is that. Note what the great men admired; they admired great things; narrow spirits admire basely, and worship meanly.

I believe that remorse is the least active of all a man's moral senses.

I never knew whether to pity or congratulate a man on coming to his senses.

I wonder is it because men are cowards in heart that they admire bravery so much, and place military valor so far beyond every other quality for reward and worship.

Titles are abolished; and the American Republic swarms with men claiming and bearing them.

Women are jealous of cigars... they regard them as a strong rival.

Oh, those women! They nurse and cuddle their presentiments, and make darlings of their ugliest thoughts.

Almost all women will give a sympathizing hearing to men who are in love. Be they ever so old, they grow young again with that conversation, and renew their own early times.

Then sing as Martin Luther sang, As Doctor Martin Luther sang, "Who loves not wine, woman and song, He is a fool his whole life long."

Novels are sweets. All people with healthy literary appetites love them-almost all women; a vast number of clever, hardheaded men.

Women like not only to conquer, but to be conquered.

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 have long gone about with a conviction on my mind that I had a work to do-a Work, if you like, with a great W; a Purpose to fulfil; ... a Great Social Evil to Discover and to Remedy.

To see a young couple loving each other is no wonder; but to see an old couple loving each other is the best sight of all.

if you are not allowed to touch the heart sometimes in spite of syntax, and are not to be loved until you all know the difference between trimeter and trameter, may all Poetry go to the deuce, and every schoolmaster perish miserably!

A lady who sets her heart upon a lad in uniform must prepare to change lovers pretty quickly, or her life will be but a sad one.

If a man has committed wrong in life, I don't know any moralist more anxious to point his errors out to the world than his own relations...