William Makepeace Thackeray

It is to the middle class we must look for the safety of England.

Bravery never goes out of fashion.

We are most of us very lonely in the world. You who have any who love you, cling to them, and thank God.

Despair is perfectly compatible with a good dinner, I promise you.

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

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; to go through intrigue spotless; and to forgo even ambition when the end is gained — who can say this is …

'Tis hard with respect to Beauty, that its possessor should not have even a life-enjoyment of it, but be compelled to resign it after, at the most, some forty years' lease.

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

Next to the very young, I suppose the very old are the most selfish.

Who does not believe his first passion eternal?

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

He that has ears to hear, let him stuff them with cotton.

I would rather make my name than inherit it.

Love seems to survive life, and to reach beyond it. I think we take it with us past the grave. Do we not still give it to those who have left us? May we not hope that they feel it for us, and that we shall leave it here in one or two fond …

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.

Is Beauty beautiful, or is it only our eyes that make it so?

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

The book of female logic is blotted all over with tears, and Justice in their courts is for ever in a passion.

The play is done; the curtain drops, Slow falling to the prompter’s bell: A moment yet the actor stops, And looks around, to say farewell. It is an irksome word and task; And, when he’s laughed and said his say,

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!”

Charlotte, having seen his body Borne before her on a shutter, Like a well-conducted person, Went on cutting bread and butter.

Werther had a love for Charlotte Such as words could never utter; Would you know how first he met her? She was cutting bread and butter.

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.

Christmas is here: Winds whistle shrill, Icy and chill, Little care we: Little we fear Weather without,