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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

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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
Hope
Memories
Selfish
Glow
Running
Wants
Snow
Faculties
Feelings
Blood
Suppose
Ceases
Next
Head
Survive
Alas
Young
Feeling
Cease
Sympathy
Heart
Eyes
Teeth
Faculty
Age
Memory
Checks
Sans
Eye
Cold
Strikes
Hardens

More quotes by William Makepeace Thackeray

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It seems to me one cannot sit down in that place [the Round Reading room of the British Museum] without a heart full of grateful reverence. I own to have said my grace at the table, and to have thanked Heaven for my English birthright, freely to partake of these beautiful books, and speak the truth I find there.
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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The pipe draws wisdom from the lips of the philosopher, and shuts up the mouth of the foolish it generates a style of conversation, contemplative, thoughtful, benevolent, and unaffected.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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Be it remembered that man subsists upon the air more than upon his meat and drink but no one can exist for an hour without a copious supply of air. The atmosphere which some breathe is contaminated and adulterated, and with its vital principles so diminished that it cannot fully decarbonize the blood, nor fully excite the nervous system.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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An evil person is like a dirty window, they never let the light shine through.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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Since the days of Adam, there has been hardly a mischief done in this world but a woman has been at the bottom of it.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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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 Green herbs, red peppers, mussels, saffron, Soles, onions, garlic, roach, and dace All these you eat at Terre's tavern, In that one dish of Bouillabaisse.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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Never marry with the expectation of changing a person.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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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
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There is a certain sort of man whose doom in the world is disappointment, who excels in it, and whose luckless triumphs in his meek career of life, I have often thought, must be regarded by the kind eyes above with as much favor as the splendid successes and achievements of coarser and more prosperous men.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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Vanity is often the unseen spur.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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'No business before breakfast, Glum!' says the King. 'Breakfast first, business next.'
William Makepeace Thackeray
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In effective womanly beauty form is more than face, and manner more than either.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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The book of female logic is blotted all over with tears, and Justice in their courts is forever in a passion.
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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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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I wonder is it because men are cowards in heart that they admire bravery so much, and place military valor so far beyond every other quality for reward and worship.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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Hint at the existence of wickedness in a light, easy, and agreeable manner, so that nobody's fine feelings may be offended.
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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Those who forgets their friends to follow those of a higher status are truly snobs.
William Makepeace Thackeray