400 Quotes by William Makepeace Thackeray

Come forward, some great marshal, and organize equality in society, and your rod shall swallow up all the juggling old court gold-sticks.

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?

Nature has written a letter of credit upon some men’s faces that is honored wherever presented. You cannot help trusting such men. Their very presence gives confidence. There is promise to pay in their faces which gives confidence and you prefer it to another man’s endorsement. Character is credit.

Praise everybody, I say to such: never be squeamish, but speak out your compliment both point-blank in a man’s face, and behind his back, when you know there is a reasonable chance of his hearing it again. Never lose a chance of saying a kind word. As Collingwood never saw a vacant place in his estate but he took an acorn out of his pocket and popped it in; so deal with your compliments through life. An acorn costs nothing; but it may sprout into a prodigious bit of timber.

There are other books in a man’s library besides Ovid, and after dawdling ever so long at a woman’s knee, one day he gets up and is free. We have all been there; we have all had the fever – the strongest and the smallest, from Samson, Hercules, Rinaldo, downward: but it burns out, and you get well.

This Bouillabaisse a noble dish is – A sort of soup or broth, or brew, Or hotchpotch of all sorts of fishes, That Greenwich never could outdo; Green herbs, red peppers, mussels, saffron, Soles, onions, garlic, roach, and dace; All these you eat at Terre’s tavern, In that one dish of Bouillabaisse.

If a man’s character is to be abused, say what you will, there’s nobody like a relative to do the business.

The little cares, fears, tears, timid misgivings, sleepless fancies of I don’t know how many days and nights, were forgotten under one moment’s influence of that familiar, irresistible smile.

Life is soul’s nursery- its training place for the destinies of eternity.