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.
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.
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.
All is vanity, nothing is fair.
The captain would...turn off the conversation, like a consummate man of the world, to some topic of general interest, such as the Opera, the Prince's last ball at Carlton House, or the weather - that blessing to society.
All the world used her ill, said this young misanthropist, and we may be pretty certain that persons whom all the world treats ill, deserve entirely the treatment they get. The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it, and it will in turn look sourly upon you; laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly kind companion; and so let all young persons take their choice.
Time has dealt kindly with that stout officer, as it does ordinarily with men who have good stomachs and good tempers, and are not perplexed over much by fatigue of the brain.
Are not there little chapters in everybody's life, that seem to be nothing, and yet affect all the rest of the history?
Vanity Fair is a very vain, wicked, foolish place, full of all sorts of humbugs and falsenesses and pretensions.
By humbly and frankly acknowledging yourself to be in the wrong, there is no knowing, my son, what good you may do. I knew once a gentleman and very worthy practitioner in Vanity Fair, who used to do little wrongs to his neighbours on purpose, and in order to apologise for them in an open and manly way afterwards-and what ensued? My friend Crocky Doyle was liked everywhere, and deemed to be rather impetuous-but the honestest fellow.
When one fib becomes due as it were, you must forge another to take up the old acceptance; and so the stock of your lies in circulation inevitably multiplies, and the danger of detection increases every day.
Charming Alnaschar visions! It is the happy privilege of youth to construct you, and many a fanciful creature besides Rebecca Sharp has indulged in these delightful daydreams ere now!
Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?
Have you ever had a difference with a dear friend? How his letters, written in the period of love and confidence, sicken and rebuke you! What a dreary mourning it is to dwell upon those vehement protests of dead affection! What lying epitaphs they make over the corpse of love! What dark, cruel comments upon Life and Vanities! Most of us have got or written drawers full of them. They are closet-skeletons which we keep and shun
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.
If people only made prudent marriages, what a stop to population there would be!
Your comedy and mine will have been played then, and we shall be removed
In a word, in adversity she was the best of comforters, in good fortune the most troublesome of friends...
In the midst of friends, home, and kind parents, she was alone.
Never lose a chance of saying a kind word.
One of the great conditions of anger and hatred is, that you must tell and believe lies against the hated object, in order, as we said, to be consistent.
Praise everybody, I say to such: never be squeamish, but speak out your compliment both point-blank in a man's face, and behind his back, when you know there is a reasonable chance of his hearing it again. 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 popped it in; so deal with your compliments through life. An acorn costs nothing; but it may sprout into a prodigious bit of timber.
Revenge may be wicked, but it's natural.
She had not character enough to take to drinking, and moaned about, slip-shod and in curl-papers, all day.
A person can't help their birth.
She lived in her past life- these relics and remembrances of dead affection were all that was left her in the world.
It was the womens tribute to the war. It taxes both alike, and takes the blood of the men, and the tears of the women.
Never marry with the expectation of changing a person.
A good laugh is sunshine in the house.
Nature has written a letter of credit upon some men's faces that is honored wherever presented. You cannot help trusting such men. Their very presence gives confidence. There is 'promise to pay' in their faces which gives confidence and you prefer it to another man's endorsement. Character is credit.
We have only to change the point of view And the greatest action looks mean.
And this I set down as a positive truth. A woman with fair opportunities, and without an absolute hump may marry whom she likes.
When you look at me, when you think of me, I am in paradise.
Humor is wit and love.
Ho, pretty page, with the dimpled chin That never has known the barbers shear, All your wish is woman to win, This is the way that boys begin. Wait till you come to Forty Year.
Remember, it's as easy to marry a rich woman as a poor woman.
Despair is perfectly compatible with a good dinner, I promise you.
There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write.
Sir, Respect Your Dinner idolize it, enjoy it properly. You will be many hours in the week, many weeks in the year, and many years in your life happier if you do.
There are many sham diamonds in this life which pass for real, and vice versa.
And whenever he spoke (which he did almost always), he took care to produce the very finest and longest words of which the vocabulary gave him the use, rightly judging that it was as cheap to employ a handsome, large, and sonorous epithet, as to use a little stingy one.
The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.
The play is done the curtain drops, Slow falling to the prompters bell A moment yet the actor stops And looks around to say farewell. It is an irksome word and task And when hes laughed and said his say He shows, as he removes the mask, A face thats anything but gay.
An evil person is like a dirty window, they never let the light shine through.
Next to the young, I suppose the very old are the most selfish.
This I set down as a positive truth. A woman with fair opportunities and without a positive hump, may marry whom she likes.
I would rather make my name than inherit it.
When I walk with you I feel as if I had a flower in my buttonhole.
Oh, those women They nurse and cuddle their presentiments, and make darlings of their ugliest thoughts . . .
It is to the middle-class we must look for the safety of England.
It is only hope which is real, and reality is a bitterness and a deceit.
© 2020 Inspirational Stories
© 2020 Inspirational Stories