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A man is seldom more manly than when he is what you call unmanned,--the source of his emotion is championship, pity, and courage the instinctive desire to cherish those who are innocent and unhappy, and defend those who are tender and weak.

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
Men
Innocent
Manly
Weak
Tender
Tears
Championship
Courage
Cherish
Source
Seldom
Emotion
Defend
Call
Pity
Unmanned
Desire
Unhappy
Instinctive

More quotes by William Makepeace Thackeray

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Pray, dear madam, another glass it is Christmas time, it will do you no harm.
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The true pleasure of life is to live with your inferiors.
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Our great thoughts, our great affections, the truths of our life, never leave us. Surely they can not separate from our consciousness, shall follow it whithersoever that shall go, and are of their nature divine and immortal.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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Vanity is often the unseen spur.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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How do men feel whose whole lives (and many men's lives are) are lies, schemes, and subterfuges? What sort of company do they keep when they are alone? Daily in life I watch men whose every smile is an artifice, and every wink is an hypocrisy. Doth such a fellow where a mask in his own privacy, and to his own conscience?
William Makepeace Thackeray
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Fairy roses, fairy rings, turn out sometimes troublesome things.
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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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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Oh, Vanity of vanities! How wayward the decrees of Fate are How very weak the very wise, How very small the very great are!
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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
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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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Never lose a chance of saying a kind word. As Collingwood never saw a vacant place in his estate but he took an acorn out of his pocket and planted it, so deal with your compliments through life. An acorn costs nothing, but it may spread into a prodigious timber.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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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.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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A cheerful look brings joy to the heart.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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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
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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
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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
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Taste is something quite different from fashion, superior to fashion.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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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 be no more seen.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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I want a sofa, as I want a friend, upon which I can repose familiarly. If you can't have intimate terms and freedom with one and the other, they are of no good.
William Makepeace Thackeray