William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes

As the gambler said of his dice, to love and win is the best thing, to love and lose is the next best. ~ The History of Pendennis by 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. ~ The History of Pendennis by William Makepeace Thackeray We must pass over a part of Mrs. Rebecca Crawley's biography with that lightness and delicacy which the world demands--the moral world, that has, perhaps, no particular objection to vice, but an insuperable repugnance to hearing vice called by its proper name. ~ Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray For his part, every beauty of art or nature made him thankful as well as happy, and that the pleasure to be had in listening to fine music, as in looking at the stars in the sky, or at a beautiful landscape or picture, was a benefit for which we might thank Heaven as sincerely as for any other worldly blessing. ~ Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray And whenever he spoke (which he did almost always), he took care to produce the very finest and longest words of which the vocabulary gave him the use, rightly judging that it was as cheap to employ a handsome, large, and sonorous epithet, as to use a little stingy one. ~ Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray If she did not wish to lead a virtuous life, at least she desired to enjoy a character for virtue. ~ Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray It was the women's tribute to the war. It taxes both alike, and takes the blood of the men, and the tears of the women. ~ Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray If a man has committed wrong in life, I don't know any moralist more anxious to point his errors out to the world than his own relations. ~ Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray If success is rare and slow, everybody knows how quick and easy ruin is. ~ Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray Oh, those women! They nurse and cuddle their presentiments, and make darlings of their ugliest thoughts. ~ Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray