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What is a gentleman? It is to be honest, to be gentle, to be generous, to be brave, to be wise and possessed of all these qualities to exercise them in the most graceful manner.

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
Gentle
Brave
Exercise
Graceful
Honest
Possessed
Wise
Gentleman
Quality
Qualities
Manner
Generous

More quotes by William Makepeace Thackeray

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What stories are new? All types of all characters march through all fables.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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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
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Kindness is very indigestible. It disagrees with very proud stomachs.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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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.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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How grateful are we--how touched a frank and generous heart is for a kind word extended to us in our pain! The pressure of a tender hand nerves a man for an operation, and cheers him for the dreadful interview with the surgeon.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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Could the best and kindest of us who depart from the earth have an opportunity of revisiting it, I suppose he or she (assuming that any Vanity Fair feelings subsist in the sphere whither we are bound) would have a pang of mortification at finding how soon our survivors were consoled.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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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
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I have long gone about with a conviction on my mind that I had a work to do-a Work, if you like, with a great W a Purpose to fulfil ... a Great Social Evil to Discover and to Remedy.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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Everybody in Vanity Fair must have remarked how well those live who are comfortably and thoroughly in debt how they deny themselves nothing how jolly and easy they are in their minds.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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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
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Ah! Vanitas Vanitatum! Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?-Come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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As an occupation in declining years, I declare I think saving is useful, amusing and not unbecoming. It must be a perpetual amusement. It is a game that can be played by day, by night, at home and abroad, and at which you must win in the long run. . . . What an interest it imparts to life!.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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There are many sham diamonds in this life which pass for real, and vice versa.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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Who has not remarked the readiness with which the closest of friends and honestest of men suspect and accuse each other of cheating when they fall out on money matters? Everybody does it. Everybody is right, I suppose, and the world is a rogue.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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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
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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?
William Makepeace Thackeray
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To forego even ambition when the end is gained - who can say this is not greatness?
William Makepeace Thackeray
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Benevolence and feeling ennoble the most trifling actions.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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Certain it is that scandal is good brisk talk, whereas praise of one's neighbor 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.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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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