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Who was the blundering idiot who said 'fine words butter no parsnips'? Half the parsnips of society are served and rendered palatable with no other sauce.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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William Makepeace Thackeray
Age: 52 †
Born: 1811
Born: July 18
Died: 1863
Died: December 24
Novelist
Prosaist
Writer
Calcutta
William Makepeace Thackeray
George Fitz-Boodle
Idiot
Fine
Parsnips
Society
Blundering
Half
Palatable
Words
Rendered
Butter
Sauce
Served
More quotes by William Makepeace Thackeray
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
He who meanly admires a mean thing is a snob--perhaps that is a safe definition of the character.
William Makepeace Thackeray
Never lose a chance of saying a kind word.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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
It is all very well for you, who have probably never seen any spiritual manifestations, to talk as you do but if you had seen what I have witnessed you would hold a different opinion.
William Makepeace Thackeray
Remember, it's as easy to marry a rich woman as a poor woman.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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
Oh, my young friends, how delightful is the beginning of a love-business, and how undignified, sometimes, the end!
William Makepeace Thackeray
There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write.
William Makepeace Thackeray
Except for the young or very happy, I can't say I am sorry for anyone who dies.
William Makepeace Thackeray
Malice is of the boomerang character, and is apt to turn upon the projector.
William Makepeace Thackeray
Out of the fictitious book I get the expression of the life, of the times, of the manners, of the merriment, of the dress, the pleasure, the laughter, the ridicules of society. The old times live again. Can the heaviest historian do more for me?
William Makepeace Thackeray
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
Frequent the company of your betters.
William Makepeace Thackeray
What stories are new? All types of all characters march through all fables.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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
The great quality of Dulness is to be unalterably contented with itself.
William Makepeace Thackeray
Money has only a different value in the eyes of each.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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