Top 200 William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “Under the magnetism of friendship the modest man becomes bold; the shy, confident; the lazy, active; and the impetuous, prudent and peaceful.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

52. “Humor is the mistress of tears.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

53. “It is a friendly heart that has plenty of friends.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

54. “Bad husbands will make bad wives.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

55. “Frequent the company of your betters.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

56. “As fits the holy Christmas birth, Be this, good friends, our carol still Be peace on earth, be peace on earth, To men of gentle will.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

57. “A pair of bright eyes with a dozen glances suffice to subdue a man; to enslave him, and enflame him; to make him even forget; they dazzle him so that the past becomes straightway dim to him; and he so prizes them that he would give all his life to possess ’em.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

58. “Let a man who has to make his fortune in life remember this maxim: Attacking is the only secret. Dare and the world yields, or if it beats you sometimes, dare it again and you will succeed.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

59. “I never was much of an oyster eater, nor can I relish them ‘in naturalibus’ as some do, but require a quantity of sauces, lemons, cayenne peppers, bread and butter, and so forth, to render them palatable.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

60. “What a charming reconciler and peacemaker money is!”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

61. “The Pall Mall Gazette is written by gentlemen for gentlemen.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

62. “The true pleasure of life is to live with your inferiors.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

63. “To be beautiful is enough! if a woman can do that well who should demand more from her? You don’t want a rose to sing.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

64. “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

65. “I would rather make my name than inherit it.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

66. “A person can’t help their birth.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

67. “There is no good in living in a society where you are merely the equal of everybody else. The true pleasure of life is to live with your inferiors.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

68. “Benevolence and feeling ennoble the most trifling actions.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

69. “That which we call a snob by any other name would still be snobbish.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

70. “You must not judge hastily or vulgarly of Snobs: to do so shows that you are yourself a Snob.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

71. “What stories are new? All types of all characters march through all fables.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

72. “She lived in her past life- these relics and remembrances of dead affection were all that was left her in the world.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

73. “People who do not know how to laugh are always pompous and self-conceited.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

74. “Except for the young or very happy, I can’t say I am sorry for anyone who dies.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

75. “Titles are abolished; and the American Republic swarms with men claiming and bearing them.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

76. “It was in the reign of George II. that the above-named personages lived and quarrelled ; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

77. “It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

78. “Oh, Vanity of vanities! How wayward the decrees of Fate are; How very weak the very wise, How very small the very great are!”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

79. “A fool can no more see his own folly than he can see his ears.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

80. “Vanity is often the unseen spur.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

81. “Our great thoughts, our great affections, the truths of our life, never leave us. Surely they can not separate from our consciousness, shall follow it whithersoever that shall go, and are of their nature divine and immortal.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

82. “It is only hope which is real, and reality is a bitterness and a deceit.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

83. “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.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

84. “Those we love can but walk down to the pier with us – the voyage we must make alone.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

85. “Which of us that is thirty years old has not had its Pompeii? Deep under ashes lies the life of youth – the careless sport, the pleasure and the passion, the darling joy.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

86. “Presently, we were aware of an odour gradually coming towards us, something musky, fiery, savoury, mysterious, – a hot drowsy smell, that lulls the senses, and yet enflames them, – the truffles were coming.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

87. “In the midst of friends, home, and kind parents, she was alone.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

88. “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.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

89. “Tis misfortune that awakens ingenuity, or fortitude, or endurance, in hearts where these qualities had never come to life but for the circumstance which gave them a being.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

90. “When I say that I know women, I mean I know that I don’t know them. Every single woman I ever knew is a puzzle to me, as, I have no doubt, she is to herself.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

91. “If you had told Sycorax that her son Caliban was as handsome as Apollo, she would have been pleased, witch as she was.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

92. “Follow your honest convictions and be strong.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

93. “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.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

94. “I set it down as a maxim, that it is good for a man to live where he can meet his betters, intellectual and social.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

95. “A clever, ugly man every now and then is successful with the ladies, but a handsome fool is irresistible.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

96. “Remember, it’s as easy to marry a rich woman as a poor woman.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

97. “A crow, who had flown away with a cheese from a dairy window, sate perched on a tree looking down at a great big frog in a pool underneath him.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

98. “I knew all along that the prize I had set my life on was not worth the winning.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

99. “The moral world has no particular objection to vice, but an insuperable repugnance to hearing vice called by its proper name.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

100. “Learn to admire rightly; the great pleasure of life is that. Note what the great men admired; they admired great things; narrow spirits admire basely, and worship meanly.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray