William Makepeace Thackeray

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; and to forgo even ambition when the end is gained — who can say this is not greatness?

William Makepeace Thackeray (18 July 1811 – 24 December 1863) was an English Victorian novelist and illustrator, known for his satirical works.

See also Vanity Fair

Quotes

Profoundly grateful, and as if I had swallowed a small baby. … Why, they are perfect beasts of oysters!
- Thackeray's reply when asked how he felt upon eating an unusually large American oyster during his first visit to the United States (1852–3); reported in James Grant Wilson, Thackeray in the United States: 1852–3, 1855–6 (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1904), pp. 81–82.

She looks so haughty that I should have thought her a princess at the very least, with a pedigree reaching as far back as the Deluge. But this lady was no better born than many other ladies who give themselves airs; and all sensible people laughed at her absurd pretensions.
- The Rose and the Ring (1855), Ch. 2.

Except for the young or very happy, I can't say I am sorry for any one who dies.
- Letter to Mrs. Bryan Waller Procter (26 November 1856), from The Letters and Private Papers of William Makepeace Thackeray, ed. Edgar F. Harden [Garland Publishing, Inc., 1994, ISBN 9780824036461], vol. 1, p. 763.

I should like to see before I die, and think of it daily more and more, the commencement of Jesus Christ's christianism in the world, where I am sure people may be made a hundred times happier than by its present forms, Judaism, ascenticism, Bullarism.
- Thackeray, William Makepeace. Nov. 1840, A Collection of Letters (1887). Ardent Media. p. 36.

The Luck of Barry Lyndon (1844)

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.
- Ch. 5

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.
- Ch. 10.

Let the man who has to make his fortune in life remember this maxim. Attacking is his only secret. Dare, and the world always yields: or, if it beat you sometimes, dare again, and it will succumb.
- Ch. 13.

Sketches and Travels in London (1847–1850)

Sketches and Travels in London (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1904). Papers contibuted to Punch from 1847 to 1850.

Good humour may be said to be one of the very best articles of dress one can wear in society.
- "Mr. Brown's Letters to his Nephew: On Tailoring — And Toilettes in General", p. 12.

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.
- "Mr. Brown's Letters to His Nephew: On Friendship", p. 38.

Let us be very gentle with our neighbours' failings; and forgive our friends their debts, as we hope ourselves to be forgiven.
- "Mr. Brown's Letters to His Nephew: On Friendship", p. 42.

When I say 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.
- "Mr. Brown's Letters to His Nephew: On Love, Marriage, Men and Women", p. 96.

Stupid people, people who do not know how to laugh, are always pompous and self-conceited.
- "Mr. Brown's Letters to His Nephew: On Love, Marriage, Men and Women", p. 109.

Time passes—Time the consoler—Time the anodyne—Time the grey calm satirist, whose sad smile seems to say, Look, O man, at the vanity of the objects you pursue, and of yourself who pursue them!
- "On the Pleasures of Being a Fogy", p. 143.

The Book of Snobs (1848)

Society having ordained certain customs, men are bound to obey the law of society, and conform to its harmless orders.
- Ch. 1: "The Snob Playfully Dealt With".

He who meanly admires mean things is a Snob.
- Ch. 2: "The Snob Royal"

It is impossible, in our condition of society, not to be sometimes a Snob.
- Ch. 3: "The Influence of the Aristocracy on Snobs".

If you will fling yourself under the wheels, Juggernaut will go over you, depend upon it.
- Ch. 3: "The Influence of the Aristocracy on Snobs".

That which we call a Snob, by any other name would still be Snobbish.
- Ch. 18: "Party-Giving Snobs".

The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century (1848)

Out of the fictitious book I get the expression of the life of the time; of the manners, the movement, the dress, the pleasures, the laughter, the ridicules of society—the old times live again, and I travel in the old country of England. Can the heaviest historian do more for me?
- Lecture 3: "Steele".

Try to frequent the company of your betters. In books and life that is the most wholesome society; 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.
- Lecture 4: "Prior, Gay, and Pope".

I suppose as long as novels last and authors aim at interesting their public, there must always be in the story a virtuous and gallant hero, a wicked monster his opposite, and a pretty girl who finds a champion; bravery and virtue conquer beauty: and vice, after seeming to triumph through a certain number of pages, is sure to be discomfited in the last volume, when justice overtakes him and honest folks come by their own.
- Lecture 5: "Hogarth, Smollett, and Fielding".

One tires of a page of which every sentence sparkles with points, of a sentimentalist who is always pumping the tears from his eyes or your own. One suspects the genuineness of the tear, the naturalness of the humour.
- Lecture 7: "Charity and Humour".

There is no man that teaches us to be gentlemen better than Joseph Addison.
- Lecture 7: "Charity and Humour".

Humour is the mistress of tears; she knows the way to the fons lachrymarum, strikes in dry and rugged places with her enchanting wand, and bids the fountain gush and sparkle. She has refreshed myriads more from her natural springs, than ever tragedy has watered from her pompous old urn.
- Lecture 7: "Charity and Humour".

The History of Pendennis (1848-1850)

Thus love makes fools of all of us, big and little
- Ch. 4.

It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all. Some of us can't: and are proud of our impotence, too.
- Ch. 6.

Yes, I am a fatal man, Madame Fribsbi. To inspire hopeless passion is my destiny.
- Ch. 23.

Remember, it's as easy to marry a rich woman as a poor woman.
- Ch. 28.

Of the Corporation of the Goosequill — of the Press, my boy, … of the fourth estate … There she is — the great engine — she never sleeps. She has her ambassadors in every quarter of the world — her couriers upon every road. Her officers march along with armies, and her envoys walk into statesmen's cabinets. They are ubiquitous.
- Ch. 30.

Although I enter not,
Yet round about the spot
Ofttimes I hover,
And near the sacred gate,
With longing eyes I wait,
Expectant of her.
- "At the Church Gate", in Ch. 32.

As the gambler said of his dice, to love and win is the best thing, to love and lose is the next best.
- Ch. 40.

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!
- Ch. 42.

How hard it is to make an Englishman acknowledge that he is happy!
- Ch. 70.

We see flowers of good blooming in foul places.
- Ch. 76.

The History of Henry Esmond (1852)

Full text online (1852)

'Tis not the dying for a faith that's so hard, Master Harry — every man of every nation has done that — 'tis the living up to it that is difficult, as I know to my cost.
- Bk. I, Ch. 6.

'Tis strange what a man may do, and a woman yet think him an angel.
- Bk. I, Ch. 7.

There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up the pen to write.
- Bk. II, Ch. 1.

If there is a verity in wine, according to the old adage, what an amiable-natured character Dick's must have been! In proportion as he took in wine he overflowed with kindness.
- Bk. II, Ch. 11.

I think Steele shone rather than sparkled.
- Bk. II, Ch. 11.

Dick never thought that his bottle companion was a butt to aim at—only a friend to shake by the hand.
- Bk. II, Ch. 11.

We love being in love, that's the truth on't.
- Bk. II, Ch. 15.

Sure, love vincit omnia; is immeasurably above all ambition, more precious than wealth, more noble than name. He knows not life who knows not that: he hath not felt the highest faculty of the soul who hath not enjoyed it.
- Bk. III, Ch. 13.

The Newcomes (1854–1855)

What stories are new? All types of all characters march through all fables.
- Ch. 1.

The true pleasure of life is to live with your inferiors.
- Ch. 9.

What money is better bestowed than that of a schoolboy's tip? How the kindness is recalled by the recipient in after days! It blesses him that gives and him that takes.
- Ch. 16.

The wicked are wicked, no doubt, and they go astray and they fall, and they come by their deserts: but who can tell the mischief which the very virtuous do?
- Ch. 20.

To be beautiful is enough. If a woman can do that well, who shall demand more from her? You don't want a rose to sing.
- Ch. 25.

Young ladies may have been crossed in love, and have had their sufferings, their frantic moments of grief and tears, their wakeful nights, and so forth; but it is only in very sentimental novels that people occupy themselves perpetually with that passion; and, I believe, what are called broken hearts are very rare articles indeed.
- Ch. 32.

If love lives through all life; and survives through all sorrow; and remains steadfast with us through all changes; and in all darkness of spirit burns brightly; and if we die deplores us forever and loves still equally; and exists with the very last gasp and throb of the faithful bosom—whence it passes with the pure soul beyond death; surely it shall be immortal!
- Ch. 46.

Bad husbands will make bad wives.
- Ch. 55.

People hate, as they love, unreasonably.
- Ch. 56.

Ballads (1855)

Full text online

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.
- "The Ballad of Bouillabaisse", st. 2.

Christmas is here:
Winds whistle shrill,
Icy and chill,
Little care we:
Little we fear
Weather without,
Sheltered about
The Mahogany Tree.
- "The Mahogany Tree", st. 1.

Ho, pretty page, with the dimpled chin,
That never has known the barber’s shear,
All your wish is woman to win,
This is the way that boys begin,—
Wait till you come to Forty Year.
- "The Age of Wisdom", st. 1.

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.
- "Sorrows of Werther", st. 1.

Charlotte, having seen his body
Borne before her on a shutter,
Like a well-conducted person,
Went on cutting bread and butter.
- "Sorrows of Werther", st. 4.

Then sing as Martin Luther sang,
As Doctor Martin Luther sang:
“Who loves not wine, woman and song,
He is a fool his whole life long!”
- "A Credo", st. 1.

The play is done; the curtain drops,
Slow falling to the prompter’s bell:
A moment yet the actor stops,
And looks around, to say farewell.
It is an irksome word and task;
And, when he’s laughed and said his say,
He shows, as he removes the mask,
A face that’s anything but gay.
- "The End of the Play", st. 1.

The Virginians (1857-1859)

The Virginians (1857-1859)

I never know whether to pity or congratulate a man on coming to his senses.

The book of female logic is blotted all over with tears, and Justice in their courts is for ever in a passion.
- Ch. 4.

Women like not only to conquer, but to be conquered.
- Ch. 4.

Is Beauty beautiful, or is it only our eyes that make it so?
- Ch. 16.

When a man is in love with one woman in a family, it is astonishing how fond he becomes of every person connected with it.
- Ch. 20.

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?
- Ch. 21.

I would rather make my name than inherit it.
- Ch. 26.

He that has ears to hear, let him stuff them with cotton.
- Ch. 38.

I never know whether to pity or congratulate a man on coming to his senses.
- Ch. 56.

Who does not believe his first passion eternal?
- Ch. 57.

Next to the very young, I suppose the very old are the most selfish.
- Ch. 61.

If there is no love more in yonder heart, it is but a corpse unburied.
- Ch. 66.

'Tis hard with respect to Beauty, that its possessor should not have even a life-enjoyment of it, but be compelled to resign it after, at the most, some forty years' lease.
- Ch. 73.

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; and to forgo even ambition when the end is gained — who can say this is not greatness?
- Ch. 92.

Lovel the Widower (1860)

Kindnesses are easily forgotten; but injuries!—what worthy man does not keep those in mind?
- Ch. 1.

Despair is perfectly compatible with a good dinner, I promise you.
- Ch. 6.

We are most of us very lonely in the world. You who have any who love you, cling to them, and thank God.
- Ch. 6.

Four Georges (1860-1861)

Bravery never goes out of fashion.
- "George II".

It is to the middle class we must look for the safety of England.
- "George III".

George, be a King!
- "George III".
- Said by Princess Augusta to her son, George III

Roundabout Papers (1863)

Roundabout Papers: Reprinted from "The Cornhill Magazine" (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1863)

Novels are sweets. All people with healthy literary appetites love them—almost all women;—a vast number of clever, hard-headed men.
- "On a Lazy Idle Boy", p. 7.

Titles are abolished; and the American Republic swarms with men claiming and bearing them.
- "On Ribbons", p. 30.

The thorn in the cushion of the editorial chair […,] it stings me now as I write.
- "Thorns in the Cushion", p. 72

We who have lived before railways were made, belong to another world. […] It was only yesterday; but what a gulph between now and then? Then was the old world. Stage-coaches, more or less swift, riding-horses, pack-horses, highwaymen, knights in armour, Norman invaders, Roman legions, Druids, ancient Britons, painted blue, and so forth—all these belong to the old period. […] But your railroad starts the new era, and we of a certain age belong to the new time and the old one. […] We who lived before railways, and survive out of the ancient world, are like Father Noah and his family out of the Ark.
- "De Juventute", pp. 110, 112.

Certain it is that scandal is good brisk talk, whereas praise of one's neighbour is by no means lively hearing. An acquaintance grilled, scored, devilled, and served with mustard and cayenne pepper, excites the appetite; whereas a slice of cold friend with currant jelly is but a sickly, unrelishing meat.
- "On a Hundred Years Hence", p. 211.

At that comfortable tavern on Pontchartrain, we had a bouillabaisse than which a better was never eaten at Marseilles: and not the least headache in the morning, I give you my word: on the contrary, you only wake with a sweet refreshing thirst for claret and water.
- "A Mississippi Bubble", p. 269.

So they pass away: friends, kindred, the dearest-loved, grown people, aged, infants. As we go on the down-hill journey, the mile-stones are grave-stones, and on each more and more names are written; unless haply you live beyond man's common age, when friends have dropped off, and, tottering, and feeble, and unpitied, you reach the terminus alone.
- "On Letts's Diary", p. 291.

Those who are gone, you have. Those who departed loving you, love you still; and you love them always. They are not really gone, those dear hearts and true; they are only gone into the next room: and you will presently get up and follow them, and yonder door will close upon you, and you will no more be seen.
- "On Letts's Diary", p. 292.

Misattributed

The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, familiar things new.
- In this work are exhibited in a very high degree the two most engaging powers of an author. New things are made familiar, and familiar things are made new. ~ Samuel Johnson, "The Life of Alexander Pope" from Lives of the English Poets (1781) [1]

Quotes about Thackeray

Thackeray is everybody's past — is everybody's youth. Forgotten friends flit about the passages of dreamy colleges and unremembered clubs; we hear fragments of unfinished conversations, we see faces without names for an instant, fixed forever in some trivial grimace: we smell the strong smell of social cliques now quite incongruous to us; and there stir in all the little rooms at once the hundred ghosts of oneself.
- G. K. Chesterton, The Victorian Age in Literature (1913) [University of Notre Dame Press, 1963], Ch. II: The Great Victorian Novelists (p. 64).

(“Chip Delany says that science fiction is as much a way of "reading" as it is a way of writing, and learn that. What is it that we have to learn?”) That's true for realism, too. You have to learn how to read Jane Austen. We have to learn how to read realistic fiction. A lot of people never do. Some of them, our fantasy readers, don't know how to read Thackeray, or any novels. They don't know what to expect, they don't know what the rewards are supposed to be.
- 1994 interview in Conversations with Ursula Le Guin

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