William M. Thackeray Quotes

"We should pay as much reverence to youth as we should to age; there are points in which you young folks are altogether our superiors: and I can't help constantly crying out to persons of my own years, when busied about their young people -- leave them alone; don't be always meddling with their affairs, which they can manage for themselves; don't be always insisting upon managing their boats, and putting your oars in the water with theirs."

"And oh, what a mercy it is that these women do not exercise their powers oftener! We can't resist them, if they do. Let them show ever so little inclination, and men go down on their knees at once: old or ugly, it is all the same. And this I set down as a positive truth. A woman with fair opportunities, and without an absolute hump, may marry whom she likes. Only let us be thankful that the darlings are like the beasts of the field, and don't know their own power. They would overcome us entirely if they did."

"Next to excellence, comes the appreciation of it."

"It's not dying for faith that's so hard, it's living up to it."

"'Tis not the dying for a faith that's so hard... 'Tis the living up to it that's difficult."

"To endure is greater than to dare; to tire out hostile fortune; to be daunted by no difficulty; to keep heart when all have lost it; to go through intrigue spotless; to forego even ambition when the end is gained - who can say this is not greatness?"

"Life is the soul's nursery -Its training place for the destinies of eternity."

"When you look at me, when you think of me, I am in paradise."

"The book of female logic is blotted all over with tears, and Justice in their courts is forever in a passion."

"The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, familiar things new."

"An evil person is like a dirty window, they never let the light shine through."

"Bravery never goes out of fashion."

"Dinner was made for eating, not for talking."

"Follow your honest convictions and be strong."

"It is impossible, in our condition of Society, not to be sometimes a Snob."

"It is only hope which is real, and reality is a bitterness and a deceit."

"Remember, it's as easy to marry a rich woman as a poor woman."

"There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write."

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

"Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children."