Quote

[As they say in the old legends]Before a man goes to the devil himself, he sends plenty of other souls thither.

William Makepeace Thackeray

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Soul
Men
Thither
Sends
Legends
Plenty
Souls
Devil
Goes

More quotes by William Makepeace Thackeray

Image
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
Image
Taste is something quite different from fashion, superior to fashion.
William Makepeace Thackeray
Image
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
Image
If a man has committed wrong in life, I don't know any moralist more anxious to point his errors out to the world than his own relations.
William Makepeace Thackeray
Image
To be thought rich is as good as to be rich.
William Makepeace Thackeray
Image
Novels are sweets. All people with healthy literary appetites love them-almost all women a vast number of clever, hardheaded men.
William Makepeace Thackeray
Image
A clever, ugly man every now and then is successful with the ladies, but a handsome fool is irresistible.
William Makepeace Thackeray
Image
If a man's character is to be abused, say what you will, there's nobody like a relative to do the business.
William Makepeace Thackeray
Image
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
Image
Next to the young, I suppose the very old are the most selfish. Alas, the heart hardens as the blood ceases to run. The cold snow strikes down from the head, and checks the glow of feeling. Who wants to survive into old age after abdicating all his faculties one by one, and be sans teeth, sans eyes, sans memory, sans hope, sans sympathy?
William Makepeace Thackeray
Image
if you are not allowed to touch the heart sometimes in spite of syntax, and are not to be loved until you all know the difference between trimeter and trameter, may all Poetry go to the deuce, and every schoolmaster perish miserably!
William Makepeace Thackeray
Image
The little cares, fears, tears, timid misgivings, sleepless fancies of I don't know how many days and nights, were forgotten under one moment's influence of that familiar, irresistible smile.
William Makepeace Thackeray
Image
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
Image
Follow your honest convictions and be strong.
William Makepeace Thackeray
Image
Happy! Who is happy? Was there not a serpent in Paradise itself? And if Eve had been perfectly happy beforehand, would she have listened to the tempter?
William Makepeace Thackeray
Image
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.
William Makepeace Thackeray
Image
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
Image
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.
William Makepeace Thackeray
Image
...the greatest tyrants over women are women.
William Makepeace Thackeray
Image
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