“Here was a man who could not spell, and did not care to read — who had the habits and the cunning of a boor: whose aim in life was pettifogging: who never had a taste, or emotion, or enjoyment, but was sordid and soil; and yet he had rank, and honors, and power, somehow: and was dignitary of the land, and a pillar of the state.”
Vol. I, ch. 9.
Vanity Fair (1847–1848)
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William Makepeace Thackeray 69
novelist 1811–1863Related quotes

The New Yorker, March 28, 1953, quoted in David Remnick, "Reporting It All: A.J. Liebling at 100", The New Yorker, March 29, 2004.

Narrator, p. 19
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"Russell Harty, 1934 – 1988", p. 52 (1988).
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Delusion for a Dragon Slayer (1966)
Context: Griffin stood silently, watching the waterfall, sensing more than he saw, understanding more than even his senses could tell him. This was, indeed, the Heaven of his dreams, a place to spend the rest of forever, with the wind and the water and the world another place, another level of sensing, another bad dream conjured many long times before. This was reality, an only reality for a man whose existence had been not quite bad, merely insufficient, tenable but hardly enriching. For a man who had lived a life of not quite enough, this was all there ever could be of goodness and brilliance and light. Griffin moved toward the falls.
The darkness grew darker.

“He had the satisfied countenance of a man who has never succeeded in boring himself.”
Page 45.
The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde (1983)

Quote of Paul Gauguin, in Avant et après (1903)
1890s - 1910s