If a secret history of books could be written, and the author's private thoughts and meanings noted down alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would become interesting, and dull tales excite the reader!

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• William Makepeace Thackeray:

  The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.

• William Makepeace Thackeray:

  What money is better bestowed than that of a schoolboy's tip? How the kindness is recalled by the r

• William Makepeace Thackeray:

  Despair is perfectly compatible with a good dinner, I promise you.

• William Makepeace Thackeray:

  People who do not know how to laugh are always pompous and self-conceited.

• William Makepeace Thackeray:

  It is to the middle-class we must look for the safety of England.

• William Makepeace Thackeray:

  Next to the young, I suppose the very old are the most selfish.

• William Makepeace Thackeray:

  Do not be in a hurry to succeed. What would you have to live for afterwards? Better make the horizo

• William Makepeace Thackeray:

  Let a man who has to make his fortune in life remember this maxim: Attacking is the only secret. Da

• William Makepeace Thackeray:

  Next to excellence is the appreciation of it.

• William Makepeace Thackeray:

  I would rather make my name than inherit it.