William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeraywas an English novelist of the 19th century. He is famous for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth18 July 1811
clever people talent
Let us people who are so uncommonly clever and learned have a great tenderness and pity for the poor folks who are not endowed with the prodigious talents which we have.
forgiving debt failing
Let us be very gentle with our neighbors' failings, and forgive our friends their debts as we hope ourselves to be forgiven.
time time-passes
Time passes, Time the consoler, Time the anodyne.
fate littles way
When Fate wills that something should come to pass, she sends forth a million of little circumstances to clear and prepare the way.
quality contentment great-qualities
The great quality of Dulness is to be unalterably contented with itself.
courage military heart
I wonder is it because men are cowards in heart that they admire bravery so much, and place military valor so far beyond every other quality for reward and worship.
equality men sun
As if the ray which travels from the sun would reach me sooner than the man who blacks my boots.
equality differences meanness
The tallest and the smallest among us are so alike diminutive and pitifully base, it is a meanness to calculate the difference.
soul life-is nursery
Life is the soul's nursery.
memories lying heart
To be rich, to be famous? do these profit a year hence, when other names sound louder than yours, when you lie hidden away under ground, along with the idle titles engraven on your coffin? But only true love lives after you, follows your memory with secret blessings or pervades you, and intercedes for you. Non omnis moriar, if, dying, I yet live in a tender heart or two; nor am lost and hopeless, living, if a sainted departed soul still loves and prays for me.
happiness book chaps
How hard it is to make an Englishman acknowledge that he is happy! Pendennis. Book ii. Chap. xxxi.
bitterness use feels
If I mayn't tell you what I feel, what is the use of a friend?
brother yield games
Which, I wonder, brother reader, is the better lot, to die prosperous and famous, or poor and disappointed? To have, and to be forced to yield; or to sink out of life, having played and lost the game? That must be a strange feeling, when a day of our life comes and we say, 'To-morrow, success or failure won't matter much; and the sun will rise, and all the myriads of mankind go to their work or their pleasure as usual, but I shall be out of the turmoil.'
love fool littles
Love makes fools of us all, big and little.