Top 200 William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes (2026 Update)
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101. “Charlotte, having seen his body Borne before her on a shutter, Like a well-conducted person, Went on cutting bread and butter.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

102. “Frequent the company of your betters.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

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

— William Makepeace Thackeray

104. “Novels are sweets. All people with healthy literary appetites love them-almost all women; a vast number of clever, hardheaded men.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

105. “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

106. “Might I give counsel to any man, I would say to him, try to frequent the company of your betters. In books and in life, that is the most wholesome society; learn to admire rightly; the great pleasure of life is that. Note what great men admire.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

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

— William Makepeace Thackeray

108. “To forego even ambition when the end is gained – who can say this is not greatness?”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

109. “If fun is good, truth is still better, and love best of all.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

110. “Why do they always put mud into coffee on board steamers? Why does the tea generally taste of boiled boots?”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

111. “Charming Alnaschar visions! it is the happy privilege of youth to construct you.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

112. “The unambitious sluggard pretends that the eminence is not worth attaining, declines altogether the struggle, and calls himself a philosopher. I say he is a poor-spirited coward.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

113. “Love seems to survive life, and to reach beyond it. I think we take it with us past the grave. Do we not still give it to those who have left us? May we not hope that they feel it for us, and that we shall leave it here in one or two fond bosoms, when we also are gone?”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

114. “To endure is greater than to dare; to tire out hostile fortune; to be daunted my no difficulty; to keep heart when all have lost it; to go through intrigue spotless; to forgo even ambition when the end is gained – who can say this is not greatness?”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

115. “The affection of young ladies is of as rapid growth as Jack’s beanstalk, and reaches up to the sky in a night.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

116. “Ah me! we wound where we never intended to strike; we create anger where we never meant harm; and these thoughts are the thorns in our cushion. – William Makepeace Thackeray.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

117. “If you will fling yourself under the wheels, Juggernaut will go over you; depend upon it.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

118. “Humor is wit and love.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

119. “Dinner was made for eating, not for talking.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

120. “Novelty has charms that our minds can hardly withstand.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

121. “When I walk with you I feel as if I had a flower in my buttonhole.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

122. “A lady who sets her heart upon a lad in uniform must prepare to change lovers pretty quickly, or her life will be but a sad one.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

123. “Diffidence is a sort of false modesty.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

124. “When Fate wills that something should come to pass, she sends forth a million of little circumstances to clear and prepare the way.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

125. “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 choice.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

126. “If thou hast never been a fool, be sure thou wilt never be a wise man.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

127. “Perhaps all early love affairs ought to be strangled or drowned, like so many blind kittens.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

128. “Life without laughing is a dreary blank.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

129. “Life is the soul’s nursery.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

130. “The thorn in the cushion of the editorial chair.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

131. “Come forward, some great marshal, and organize equality in society, and your rod shall swallow up all the juggling old court gold-sticks.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

132. “He had placed himself at her feet so long that the poor little woman had been accustomed to trample upon him. She didn’t wish to marry him, but she wished to keep him. She wished to give him nothing, but that he should give her all. It is a bargain not unfrequently levied in love.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

133. “Kindness is very indigestible. It disagrees with proud stomachs.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

134. “The death of a child occasions a passion of grief and frantic tears, such as your end, brother reader, will never inspire.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

135. “Alas! we are the sport of destiny.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

136. “A snob is that man or woman who is always pretending to be something better – especially richer or more fashionable – than he is.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

137. “Oh, those women! They nurse and cuddle their presentiments, and make darlings of their ugliest thoughts.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

138. “Money has only a different value in the eyes of each.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

139. “Perhaps there is no greater test of a man’s regularity and easiness of conscience than his readiness to face the postman. Blessed is he who is made happy by the sound of a rat-tat! The good are eager for it; but the naughty tremble at the sound thereof.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

140. “Werther had a love for Charlotte Such as words could never utter; Would you know how first he met her? She was cutting bread and butter.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

141. “A woman’s heart is just like a lithographer’s stone; what is once written upon it cannot be rubbed out.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

142. “What woman, however old, has not the bridal-favours and raiment stowed away, and packed in lavender, in the inmost cupboards of her heart?”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

143. “If people only made prudent marriages, what a stop to population there would be!”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

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

— William Makepeace Thackeray

145. “Who feels injustice, who shrinks before a slight, who has a sense of wrong so acute, and so glowing a gratitude for kindness, as a generous boy?”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

146. “If a secret history of books could be written, and the author’s private thoughts and meanings noted down alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would become interesting, and dull tales excite the reader!”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

147. “True love is better than glory.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

148. “Dalam pesona persahabatan, orang yang biasanya tidak menonjolkan diri bisa menjadi berani, yang pemalu menjadi percaya diri, yang pemalas menjadi giat, yang tidak sabar dan banyak gerak menjadi hati-hati dan tenang.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

149. “What a dignity it gives an old lady, that balance at the bankers! How tenderly we look at her faults if she is a relative; what a kind, good-natured old creature we find her!”

— William Makepeace Thackeray

150. “Sir, Respect Your Dinner: idolize it, enjoy it properly. You will be many hours in the week, many weeks in the year, and many years in your life happier if you do.”

— William Makepeace Thackeray