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William Makepeace Thackeray quotes

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“It is the ordinary lot of people to have no friends if they themselves care for nobody.” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“I think I could be a good woman if I had five thousand a year.” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“Money has only a different value in the eyes of each.” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“Never lose a chance of saying a kind word.” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“A woman may possess the wisdom and chastity of Minerva, and we give no heed to her, if she has a plain face.” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“Vanity Fair is a very vain, wicked, foolish place, full of all sorts of humbugs and falsenesses and pretensions.” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children; and here was one who was worshipping a stone!” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“Always to be right, always to trample forward, and never to doubt, are not these the great qualities with which dullness takes the lead in the world?” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it, and it will in turn look sourly upon you; laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly kind companion; and so let all young persons take their...” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“A woman with fair opportunities, and without an absolute hump, may marry WHOM SHE LIKES.” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“Revenge may be wicked, but it's natural” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“Some cynical Frenchman has said that there are two parties to a love-transaction: the one who loves and the other who condescends to be so treated.” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“If people only made prudent marriages, what a stop to population there would be!” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“Are not there little chapters in everybody's life, that seem to be nothing, and yet affect all the rest of the history?” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“One of the great conditions of anger and hatred is, that you must tell and believe lies against the hated object, in order, as we said, to be consistent.” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“When one fib becomes due as it were, you must forge another to take up the old acceptance; and so the stock of your lies in circulation inevitably multiplies, and the danger of detection increases every day.” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“Women only know how to wound so. There is a poison on the tips of their little shafts, which stings a thousand times more than a man's blunter weapon.” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“assuredly, the greatest tyrants over women are women.” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“if a man's character is to be abused, say what you will, there's nobody like a relation to do the business.” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“Since the days of Adam, there has been hardly a mischief done in this world but a woman has been at the bottom of it.” William Makepeace Thackeray, The Luck of Barry Lyndon
“Who has not remarked the readiness with which the closest of friends and honestest of men suspect and accuse each other of cheating when they fall out on money matters? Everybody does it. Everybody is right, I suppose, and the world is a rogue.” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“He went to the deuce for a woman. There must be good in a man who will do that.” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“If you take temptations into account, who is to say that he is better than his neighbour? A comfortable career of prosperity, if it does not make people honest, at least keeps them so.” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“In the midst of friends, home, and kind parents, she was alone.” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“the affection of young ladies is of as rapid growth as Jack's bean-stalk, and reaches up to the sky in a night.” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“I should like to know what well-constituted mind, merely because it is transitory, dislikes roast beef?” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“Attacking is his only secret. Dare, and the world always yields: or, if it beat you sometimes, dare again, and it will succumb.” William Makepeace Thackeray, The Luck of Barry Lyndon
“the moral world . . . has, perhaps, no particular objection to vice, but an insuperable repugnance to hearing vice called by its proper name.” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“Long brooding over those lost pleasures exaggerates their charm and sweetness.” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“What do men know about women's martyrdoms? We should go mad had we to endure the hundredth part of those daily pains which are meekly borne by many women.” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“The bearded creatures are quite as eager for praise, quite as finikin over their toilettes, quite as proud of their personal advantages, quite as conscious of their powers of fascination, as any coquette in the world. ” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“If success is rare and slow, everybody knows how quick and easy ruin is.” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
“And yet when was the time that such have not cried out: heart-broken, humble protestants, unheard in the uproar of the triumph!” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

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women love happiness marriage money friendship men world nature hate vice life care kindness virtue beauty God pain honesty wealth

Related sources

Vanity Fair (33)
The Luck of Barry Lyndon (2)