William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes

1 | 2

What a charming reconciler and peacemaker money is!

William Makepeace Thackeray (Vanity Fair, 1848)

Bravery never goes out of fashion.

William Makepeace Thackeray (The Four Georges, 1860)

Follow your honest convictions and be strong.

William Makepeace Thackeray

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

William Makepeace Thackeray (The History of Pendennis, 1848 - 1850)

There is a skeleton in every house.

William Makepeace Thackeray (Punch in the East, 1845)

Business first; pleasure afterwards.

William Makepeace Thackeray (The Rose and the Ring, 1855)

People hate as they love, unreasonably.

William Makepeace Thackeray (The Newcomes, 1855)

Never lose a chance of saying a kind word.

William Makepeace Thackeray (Vanity Fair, 1848)

I would rather make my name than inherit it.

William Makepeace Thackeray (The Virginians, 1857 - 1859)

Except for the young or very happy, I can't say I am sorry for any one who dies.

William Makepeace Thackeray (Letter to Mrs. Bryan Waller Procter, 1856)

Tis not the dying for a faith that's so hard.. every man has done that... 'tis the living up to it that is difficult.

William Makepeace Thackeray (The History of Henry Esmond, 1852)

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

William Makepeace Thackeray (The Virginians, 1857 - 1859)

There are many sham diamonds in this life which pass for real, and vice versa.

William Makepeace Thackeray (What I Remarked at the Exhibition, 1851)

If success is rare and slow, everybody knows how quick and easy ruin is.

William Makepeace Thackeray (Vanity Fair, 1848)

Revenge may be wicked, but it’s natural.

William Makepeace Thackeray (Vanity Fair, 1848)

You read the past in some old faces.

William Makepeace Thackeray (The Virginians, 1857 - 1859)

We see flowers of good blooming in foul places.

William Makepeace Thackeray (The History of Pendennis, 1848 - 1850)

Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.

William Makepeace Thackeray (Vanity Fair, 1848)

Dare, and the world always yields: or, if it beat you sometimes, dare again, and it will succumb.

William Makepeace Thackeray (The Luck of Barry Lyndon, 1844)

It is only hope which is real, and reality is a bitterness and a deceit.

William Makepeace Thackeray (Rebecca and Rowena, 1850

Good humour may be said to be one of the very best articles of dress one can wear in society.

William Makepeace Thackeray (Sketches and Travels in London, 1856)

If there is no love more in yonder heart, it is but a corpse unburied.

William Makepeace Thackeray (The Newcomes, 1855)

He who loves not wine, woman and song,
He is a fool his whole life long.

William Makepeace Thackeray

Kindnesses are easily forgotten; but injuries!—what worthy man does not keep those in mind?

William Makepeace Thackeray (Lovel the Widower, 1860)

Love is master of the wisest... It is only fools who defy him.

William Makepeace Thackeray (Men's Wives, 1852)

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

William Makepeace Thackeray (The History of Henry Esmond, 1852)

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 (The History of Pendennis, 1848 - 1850)

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 (The History of Henry Esmond, 1852)

When a man is in love with one woman in a family, it is astonishing how fond he becomes of every person connected with it.

William Makepeace Thackeray (The Virginians, 1857 - 1859)

Oh, my young friends, how delightful is the beginning of a love-business, and how undignified, sometimes, the end!

William Makepeace Thackeray (The Virginians, 1857 - 1859)

1 | 2

William Makepeace Thackeray Bio

Born: July 18, 1811
Died: December 24, 1863

William Makepeace Thackeray was an English victorian novelist and writer. He is best known for his satirical novels, most notably "Vanity Fair".

Notable Works

The Luck of Barry Lyndon (1844)
Vanity Fair
(1848)
Pendennis
(1848 - 1850)
The History of Henry Esmond
(1852)