William Makepeace Thackeray
Overview
 
William Makepeace Thackeray (icon; 18 July 1811 – 24 December 1863) was an English novelist of the 19th century. He was famous for his satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society.
Thackeray, an only child, was born in Calcutta (the capital of the British Indian Empire at the time, in the grounds of what is now the Armenian College & Philanthropic Academy – on the old Freeschool Street, now called Mirza Ghalib Street), India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, where his father, Richmond Thackeray (1 September 1781 – 13 September 1815), held the high rank of secretary to the board of revenue in the British East India Company
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...

.
Quotations

Let the man who has to make his fortune in life remember this maxim. Attacking is his only secret. Dare, and the world always yields: or, if it beat you sometimes, dare again, and it will succumb.

The Luck of Barry Lyndon|The Luck of Barry Lyndon (1844), Ch. 13

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, Ch. 16

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, Ch. 20

Good humour may be said to be one of the very best articles of dress one can wear in society.

Sketches and Travels in London; Mr. Brown's Letters to his Nephew: "On Tailoring — And Toilettes in General" (1856)

Stupid people, people who do not know how to laugh, are always pompous and self-conceited.

Sketches and Travels in London; Mr. Brown's Letters to His Nephew: "On Love, Marriage, Men and Women" (1856)

Except for the young or very happy, I can't say I am sorry for any one who dies.

Letter to Mrs. Bryan Waller Procter (26 November 1856), from The Letters and Private Papers of William Makepeace Thackeray, ed. Edgar F. Harden [Garland Publishing, Inc., 1994, ISBN 9-8240-3646-8], vol. 1, p. 763

 
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