William Makepeace Thackeray: Quotes about love

William Makepeace Thackeray was novelist. Explore interesting quotes on love.
William Makepeace Thackeray: 138 quotes20 likes

“People hate as they love, unreasonably.”

William Makepeace Thackeray

“Thus love makes fools of all of us, big and little”

William Makepeace Thackeray

Source: The History of Pendennis (1848-1850), Ch. 4.

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

William Makepeace Thackeray

Source: The History of Pendennis (1848-1850), Ch. 40.

“It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all.”

William Makepeace Thackeray

Source: The History of Pendennis (1848-1850), Ch. 6.
Context: It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all. Some of us can't: and are proud of our impotence, too.

“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.”

William Makepeace Thackeray Vanity Fair

Vol. I, ch. 13.
Source: Vanity Fair (1847–1848)

“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!”

William Makepeace Thackeray Vanity Fair

Vol. I, ch. 12.
Source: Vanity Fair (1847–1848)

“Then sing as Martin Luther sang,
As Doctor Martin Luther sang,
“Who loves not wine, woman and song,
He is a fool his whole life long.””

William Makepeace Thackeray

A Credo, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“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.”

William Makepeace Thackeray

Sorrows of Werther, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).