97 quotes
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!
Vanity Fair (1847)
To be beautiful is enough. If a woman can do that well, who shall demand more from her? You don't want a rose to sing.
The Newcomes (1854)
Thus love makes fools of all of us, big and little
The History of Pendennis (1848)
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?
The Newcomes (1854)
What money is better bestowed than that of a schoolboy's tip? How the kindness is recalled by the recipient in after days! It blesses him that gives and him that takes.
The Newcomes (1854)
Werther had a love for Charlotte
Such as words could never utter;
Would you know how first he met her?
She was cutting bread and butter.
Ballads (1855)
When I say I know women, I mean I know that I don't know them. Every single woman I ever knew is a puzzle to me, as I have no doubt she is to herself.
Sketches and Travels in London (1847)
He fought a thousand glorious wars,
And more than half the world was his,
And somewhere, now, in yonder stars,
Can tell, mayhap, what greatness is.
Bravery never goes out of fashion.
Four Georges (1860)
Profoundly grateful, and as if I had swallowed a small baby. … Why, they are perfect beasts of oysters!
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.
Ballads (1855)
On the day of the dinner of the Oystermongers' Company, what a noble speech I thought of in the cab!
Except for the young or very happy, I can't say I am sorry for any one who dies.
Bad husbands will make bad wives.
The Newcomes (1854)
'Tis not the dying for a faith that's so hard, Master Harry — every man of every nation has done that — 'tis the living up to it that is difficult, as I know to my cost.
The History of Henry Esmond (1852)
Sure, love vincit omnia; is immeasurably above all ambition, more precious than wealth, more noble than name. He knows not life who knows not that: he hath not felt the highest faculty of the soul who hath not enjoyed it.
The History of Henry Esmond (1852)
Charlotte, having seen his body
Borne before her on a shutter,
Like a well-conducted person,
Went on cutting bread and butter.
Ballads (1855)
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.
Vanity Fair; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922)
One tires of a page of which every sentence sparkles with points, of a sentimentalist who is always pumping the tears from his eyes or your own. One suspects the genuineness of the tear, the naturalness of the humour.
Christmas is here:
Winds whistle shrill,
Icy and chill,
Little care we:
Little we fear
Weather without,
Sheltered about
The Mahogany Tree.
Ballads (1855)