Great Throughts Treasury

"All your wish is woman to win, this is the way that boys begin."

"Although I enter not, yet round about the spot ofttimes I hover; and near the sacred gate with longing eyes I wait, expectant of her."

"Always remember to take the door-key."

"Always to be right, always to trample forward, and never to doubt, are not these the great qualities with which dullness takes the lead in the world?"

"An evil person is like a dirty window, they never let the light shine through."

"An immense genius: an awful downfall and ruin. So great a man he seems to me, that thinking of him is like thinking of an empire falling. [Of Jonathan Swift]"

"An immense percentage of snobs, I believe, is to be found in every rank of this mortal life."

"An intelligent wife can make her home, in spite of exigencies, pretty much what she pleases."

"And as a general rule, which may make all creditors who are inclined to be severe pretty comfortable in their minds, no men embarrassed are altogether honest, very likely. They conceal something; they exaggerate chances of good luck; hide away the reals state of affairs; say that things are flourishing when they are hopeless; keep a smiling face (a dreary smile it is) upon the verge of bankruptcy--are ready to lay hold of any pretext for delay, or of any money, so as to stave off the inevitable ruin a few days longer."

"And as every one of their dear sex is the rival of the rest of her kind, timidity passes for folly in their charitable judgements; and gentleness for dullness; and silence -- which is but timid denial of the unwelcome assertion of ruling folks, and tacit protestantism -- above all, finds no mercy at the hands of the female Inquisition."

"And by these wonderful circumstances I was once more free again: and I kept my resolution then made, never to fall more into the hands of any recruiter, and henceforth and forever to be a gentleman."

"And lo! in a flash of crimson splendor, with blazing scarlet clouds running before his chariot, and heralding his majestic approach, God's sun rises upon the world."

"And looks around to say farewell."

"And oh, what a mercy it is that these women do not exercise their powers oftener! We can't resist them, if they do. Let them show ever so little inclination, and men go down on their knees at once: old or ugly, it is all the same. And this I set down as a positive truth. A woman with fair opportunities, and without an absolute hump, may marry whom she likes. Only let us be thankful that the darlings are like the beasts of the field, and don't know their own power. They would overcome us entirely if they did."

"And one man is as good as another ? and a great dale betther, as the Irish philosopher said."

"And so it is over; but we had a jolly time, whilst you were with us, hadn't we?"

"And those who save a little."

"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."

"Are not there little chapters in everybody's life, that seem to be nothing, and yet affect all the rest of the history?"

"As an occupation in declining years, I declare I think saving is useful, amusing and not unbecoming. It must be a perpetual amusement. It is a game that can be played by day, by night, at home and abroad, and at which you must win in the long run. . . . What an interest it imparts to life!"

"As his hero and heroine pass the matrimonial barrier, the novelist generally drops the curtain, as if the drama were over then: the doubts and struggles of life ended: as if, once landed in the marriage country, all were green and pleasant there: and wife and husband had nothing to do but to link each other?s arms together, and wander gently downwards towards old age in happy and perfect fruition. But our little Amelia was just on the bank of her new country, and was already looking anxiously back towards the sad friendly figures waving farewell to her across the stream, from the other distant shore."

"As if the ray which travels from the sun would reach me sooner than the man who blacks my boots."

"As nature made every man with a nose and eyes of his own, she gave him a character of his own, too; and yet we, O foolish race! must try our very best to ape some one or two of our neighbors, whose ideas fit us no more than their breeches!"

"As the gambler said of his dice, to love and win is the best thing, to love and lose is the next best."

"At certain periods of life, we live years of emotion in a few weeks, and look back on those times as on great gaps between the old life and the new."

"At that comfortable tavern on Pontchartrain we had a bouillabaisse than which a better was never eaten at Marseilles; and not the least headache in the morning, I give you my word; on the contrary, you only wake with a sweet refreshing thirst for claret and water."

"Attacking is the only secret. Dare and the world always yields; or if it beats you sometimes, dare it again and it will succumb."

"Away from the world and its toils and its cares, I've a snug little kingdom up four pair of stairs."

"Bad husbands will make bad wives."

"Be cautious then, young ladies; be wary how you engage. Be shy of loving frankly; never tell all you feel, or (a better way still), feel very little. See the consequences of being prematurely honest and confiding, and mistrust yourselves and everybody. Get yourselves married as they do in France, where the lawyers are the bridesmaids and confidantes. At any rate, never have any feelings which may make you uncomfortable, or make any promises which you cannot at any required moment command and withdraw. That is the way to get on, and be respected, and have a virtuous character in Vanity Fair."

"Before a man goes to the devil himself, he sends plenty of other souls thither. [As they say in the old legends]"

"before I was married I didn't care what bills I put my name to, and so long as Moses would wait or Levy would renew for three months, I kept on never minding. But since I'm married, except renewing, of course, I give you my honor I've not touched a bit of stamped paper."

"Black care sits behind all sorts of horses, and gives a trink-gilt to postilions all over the map."

"Bravery never goes out of fashion"

"Business first; pleasure afterwards."

"But Fate is stronger than all of us, and willed what has come to pass."

"But it's a changeable world! When we consider how great our sorrow seem, and how small they are; how we think we shall die of grief, and how quickly we forget, I think we ought to be ashamed of ourselves and our fickle-heartedness. For, after all, what business has Time to bring us consolation?"

"But my kind reader will please to remember that this history has ?Vanity Fair? for a title, and that Vanity Fair is a very vain, wicked, foolish place, full of all sorts of humbugs and falsenesses and pretensions."

"But oh, Mesdames, if you are not allowed to touch the heart sometimes in spite of syntax, and are not to be loved until you all know the difference between trimeter and tetrameter, may all Poetry go to the deuce, and every schoolmaster perish miserably!"

"But, without preaching, the truth may surely be borne in mind, that the bustle, and triumph, and laughter, and gaiety which Vanity Fair exhibits in public, do not always pursue the performer into private life, and that the most dreary depression of spirits and dismal repentances sometimes overcome him. Recollection of the best ordained banquets will scarcely cheer sick epicures. Reminiscences of the most becoming dresses and brilliant ball triumphs will go very little way to console faded beauties. Perhaps statesmen, at a particular period of existence, are not much gratified at thinking over the most triumphant divisions; and the success or the pleasure of yesterday becomes of very small account when a certain (albeit uncertain) morrow is in view, about which all of us must some day or other be speculating. O brother wearers of motley! Are there not moments when one grows sick of grinning and tumbling, and the jingling of cap and bells? This, dear friends and companions, is my amiable object--to walk with you through the Fair, to examine the shops and the shows there; and that we should all come home after the flare, and the noise, and the gaiety, and be perfectly miserable in private."

"By economy and good management -- by a sparing use of ready money and by paying scarcely anybody, -- people can manage to make a great show with very little means."

"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 neighbors on purpose, and in order to apologize 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."

"Certain corpuscles, denominated Christmas Books, with the ostensible intention of swelling the tide of exhilaration, or other expansive emotions, incident upon the exodus of the old and the inauguration of the New Year."

"Certain it is that scandal is good brisk talk, whereas praise of one's neighbor is by no means lively hearing. An acquaintance grilled, scored, devilled, and served with mustard and cayenne pepper excites the appetite; whereas a slice of cold friend with currant jelly is but a sickly, unrelishing meat."

"Charlotte, having seen his body borne before her on a shutter, like a well-conducted person, went on cutting bread and butter."

"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!"

"Cheerfulness means a contented spirit, a pure heart, a kind and loving disposition; it means humility and charity, a generous appreciation of others, and a modest opinion of self."

"Choose a good disagreeable friend, if you be wise ? a surly, steady, economical, rigid fellow."

"Come children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out."

"Come forward, some great marshal, and organize equality in society, and your rod shall swallow up all the juggling old court gold-sticks."