William Makepeace Thackeray’s “Vanity Fair” Quotes (25 Quotes)

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.

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.