William Makepeace Thackeray
You must not judge hastily or vulgarly of Snobs: to do so shows that you are yourself a Snob.Collection: Judging
I knew all along that the prize I had set my life on was not worth the winning.Collection: Winning
Which, I wonder, brother reader, is the better lot, to die prosperous and famous, or poor and disappointed? To have, and to be forced to yield; or to sink out of life, having played and lost the game? That must be a strange feeling, when a day of our life comes and we say, 'To-morrow, success or failure won't matter much; and the sun will rise, and all the myriads of mankind go to their work or their pleasure as usual, but I shall be out of the turmoil.'Collection: Brother
If, in looking at the lives of princes, courtiers, men of rank and fashion, we must perforce depict them as idle, profligate, and criminal, we must make allowances for the rich men's failings, and recollect that we, too, were very likely indolent and voluptuous, had we no motive for work, a mortal's natural taste for pleasure, and the daily temptation of a large income. What could a great peer, with a great castle and park, and a great fortune, do but be splendid and idle?Collection: Fashion
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.Collection: Men
We have only to change the point of view and the greatest action looks mean.Collection: Mean
[As they say in the old legends]Before a man goes to the devil himself, he sends plenty of other souls thither.Collection: Men
If I mayn't tell you what I feel, what is the use of a friend?Collection: Friendship
Novels are sweets. All people with healthy literary appetites love them-almost all women; a vast number of clever, hardheaded men.Collection: Sweet
An immense percentage of snobs, I believe, is to be found in every rank of this mortal life.Collection: Believe
One of the greatest of a great man's qualities is success; 't is the result of all the others; 't is a latent power in him which compels the favor of the gods, and subjugates fortune.Collection: Success
As an occupation in declining years, I declare I think saving is useful, amusing and not unbecoming. It must be a perpetual amusement. It is a game that can be played by day, by night, at home and abroad, and at which you must win in the long run. . . . What an interest it imparts to life!.Collection: Running
If people only made prudent marriages, what a stop to population there would be!Collection: People
A man is seldom more manly than when he is what you call unmanned,--the source of his emotion is championship, pity, and courage; the instinctive desire to cherish those who are innocent and unhappy, and defend those who are tender and weak.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Children
Oh, Vanity of vanities! How wayward the decrees of Fate are; How very weak the very wise, How very small the very great are!Collection: Wise
Vanity Fair is a very vain, wicked, foolish place, full of all sorts of humbugs and falsenesses and pretensions.Collection: Vanity
It is an awful thing to get a glimpse, as one sometimes does, when the time is past, of some little, little wheel which works the whole mighty machinery of fate, and see how our destinies turn on a minute's delay or advance.Collection: Fate
The world is full of love and pity, I say. Had there been less suffering, there would have been less kindness.Collection: Kindness
Those we love can but walk down to the pier with us - the voyage we must make alone.Collection: Piers
To forego even ambition when the end is gained - who can say this is not greatness?Collection: Ambition
If success is rare and slow, everybody knows how quick and easy ruin is.Collection: Ruins
Oh, my young friends, how delightful is the beginning of a love-business, and how undignified, sometimes, the end!Collection: Love
You, who are ashamed of your poverty, and blush for your calling, are a snob; as are you who boast of your wealth.Collection: Calling
A gentleman, is a rarer thing than some of us think for. Which of us can point out many such in his circle--men whose aims are generous, whose truth is constant and elevated; who can look the world honestly in the face, with an equal manly sympathy for the great and the small? We all know a hundred whose coats are well made, and a score who have excellent manners; but of gentlemen how many? Let us take a little scrap of paper, and each make out his list.Collection: Men
You read the past in some old faces.Collection: Past
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!Collection: Heart
Come children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out.Collection: Children
It was in the reign of George II. that the above-named personages lived and quarrelled ; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal nowCollection: Rich Or Poor
Money has only a different value in the eyes of each.Collection: Eye
Who feels injustice, who shrinks before a slight, who has a sense of wrong so acute, and so glowing a gratitude for kindness, as a generous boy?Collection: Gratitude
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.Collection: Long
'No business before breakfast, Glum!' says the King. 'Breakfast first, business next.'Collection: Kings
We who have lived before railways were made belong to another world. It was only yesterday, but what a gulf between now and then! Then was the old world. Stage-coaches, more or less swift, riding-horses, pack-horses, highwaymen, knights in armor, Norman invaders, Roman legions, Druids, Ancient Britons painted blue, and so forth -- all these belong to the old period. But your railroad starts the new era, and we of a certain age belong to the new time and the old one. We who lived before railways, and survive out of the ancient world, are like Father Noah and his family out of the Ark.Collection: Horse
He who meanly admires a mean thing is a snob--perhaps that is a safe definition of the character.Collection: Character
Dare and the world always yields; or if it beats you sometimes, dare it again and it will succumb.Collection: Yield
There is a skeleton in every house.Collection: Skeletons
To be thought rich is as good as to be rich.Collection: Riches
Life without laughing is a dreary blank.Collection: Laughter
You can't order remembrance out of the mind; and a wrong that was a wrong yesterday must be a wrong to-morrow.Collection: Order
It's a great comfort to some people to groan over their imaginary ills.Collection: People
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.Collection: Men
Kindness is very indigestible. It disagrees with very proud stomachs.Collection: Kindness
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.Collection: Couple
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.Collection: Lying
When I say that I know women, I mean I know that I don't know them. Every single woman I ever knew is a puzzle to me, as, I have no doubt, she is to herself.Collection: Mean
When Fate wills that something should come to pass, she sends forth a million of little circumstances to clear and prepare the way.Collection: Fate
Happy! Who is happy? Was there not a serpent in Paradise itself? And if Eve had been perfectly happy beforehand, would she have listened to the tempter?Collection: Happiness
Who was the blundering idiot who said 'fine words butter no parsnips'? Half the parsnips of society are served and rendered palatable with no other sauce.Collection: Fine Words