400 Quotes by William Makepeace Thackeray

Tis misfortune that awakens ingenuity, or fortitude, or endurance, in hearts where these qualities had never come to life but for the circumstance which gave them a being.

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

What a charming reconciler and peacemaker money is!

What man's life is not overtaken by one or more of those tornadoes that send us out of the course, and fling us on rocks to shelter as best we may?

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

The great moments of life are but moments like the others. Your doom is spoken in a word or two. A single look from the eyes; a mere pressure of the hand, may decide it; or of the lip,s though they cannot speak.

Could the best and kindest of us who depart from the earth have an opportunity of revisiting it, I suppose he or she (assuming that any Vanity Fair feelings subsist in the sphere whither we are bound) would have a pang of mortification at finding how soon our survivors were consoled.

People who do not know how to laugh are always pompous and self-conceited.

Almost all women have hearts full of pity.