Vanity Fair (novel) Quotes

“Them’s my sentiments.”

“I think I could be a good woman if I had five thousand a year.”

“If people only made prudent marriages, what a stop to population there would be!”

“If mere parsimony could have made a man rich, Sir Pitt Crawley might have become very wealthy.”

“Full text online at Gutenberg.org”

“Whenever he met a great man he grovelled before him, and my-lorded him as only a free-born Briton can do.”

“I am tempted to think that to be despised by her sex is a very great compliment to a woman.”

“Wikipedia: Vanity Fair (novel)”

“Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children; and here was one who was worshipping a stone!”

“Wikisource: Vanity Fair (Thackeray)”

“Pity the fallen gentleman: you to whom money and fair repute are the chiefest good; and so, surely, are they in Vanity Fair.”

“Yes, if a man’s character is to be abused, say what you will, there’s nobody like a relation to do the business.”

“And this I set down as a positive truth. A woman with fair opportunities, and without a positive hump, may marry whom she likes.”

“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.”

“When a traveller talks to you perpetually about the splendour of his luggage, which he does not happen to have with him, my son, beware of that traveller! He is, ten to one, an impostor.”

“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.”

““How can you—how dare you have such wicked, revengeful thoughts?”
“Revenge may be wicked, but it’s natural,” answered Miss Rebecca. “I’m no angel.” And, to say the truth, she certainly was not.”

“Dreadful doubt and anguish—prayers and fears and griefs unspeakable—followed the regiment. It was the women’s tribute to the war. It taxes both alike, and takes the blood of the men, and the tears of the women.”

“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!”

“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.”