Come children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
Despair is perfectly compatible with a good dinner, I promise you.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
Do not be in a hurry to succeed. What would you have to live for afterwards? Better make the horizon your goal; it will always be ahead of you.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
Except for the young or very happy, I can't say I am sorry for anyone who dies.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
I never know whether to pity or congratulate a man on coming to his senses.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
If a man's character is to be abused there's nobody like a relative to do the business.
– 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
It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
It is to the middle-class we must look for the safety of England.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
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.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
Next to excellence, comes the appreciation of it.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
Next to the young, I suppose the very old are the most selfish.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
People who do not know how to laugh are always pompous and self-conceited.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, familiar things new.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
'Tis strange what a man may do, and a woman yet think him an angel.
– 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 - who can say this is not greatness?
– William Makepeace Thackeray
To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best.
– 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
When you look at me, when you think of me, I am in paradise.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
Whenever he met a great man he groveled before him, and my-lorded him as only a free-born Briton can do.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
Bravery never goes out of fashion.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
It is only hope which is real, and reality is a bitterness and a deceit.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
It is impossible, in our condition of Society, not to be sometimes a Snob.
– William Makepeace Thackeray
Good humor is one of the best articles of dress one can wear in society.