A Quote by William Makepeace Thackeray

The unambitious sluggard pretends that the eminence is not worth attaining, declines altogether the struggle, and calls himself a philosopher. I say he is a poor-spirited coward.

William Makepeace Thackeray

Quote Topics

Altogether Calls Coward Eminence Himself Philosopher Poor Say Spirited Struggle Worth

Quote Author

William Makepeace Thackeray
English - Novelist
July 18, 1811 - December 24, 1863

A coward calls himself cautious, a miser thrifty.

Seneca the Younger

If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well. If it is worth having, it is worth waiting for. If it is worth attaining, it is worth fighting for. If it is worth experiencing, it is worth putting aside time for.

Oscar Wilde

I do not think a philosopher who would apply himself so earnestly to the explaining the ultimate principles of the soul, would show himself a great master in the very science of human nature, which he pretends to explain, or very knowing in what is naturally satisfactory to the mind of man.

David Hume

One man pretends to be rich, yet has nothing; another pretends to be poor, yet has great wealth.

Solomon

Poor is the man who does not know his own intrinsic worth and tends to measure everything by relative value. A man of financial wealth who values himself by his financial net worth is poorer than a poor man who values himself by his intrinsic self worth.

Sydney Madwed

Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. It falsifies statistics. It pretends not to possess an omnipotent and unprincipled police apparatus. It pretends to respect human rights. It pretends to prosecute no one. It pretends to fear nothing. It pretends to pretend nothing.

Vaclav Havel

I do not hesitate to say that the road to eminence and power, from an obscure condition, ought not to be made too easy, nor a thing too much of course. If rare merit be the rarest of all things, it ought to pass through some sort of probation. The temple of honor ought to be seated on an eminence. If it be open through virtue, let it be remembered, too, that virtue is never tried but by some difficulty and some struggle.

Edmund Burke

The coward calls the brave man rash, the rash man calls him a coward.

Aristotle

A modern philosopher who has never once suspected himself of being a charlatan must be such a shallow mind that his work is probably not worth reading.

Leszek Kolakowski

Every time you hear that the majority of Democratic candidates go on stage, they say poor women of color need access to abortion. I was born to a poor woman of color. I was a poor woman of color when I gave birth to my children. Who's to say that their lives are worth any less than others?

Angela Stanton-King

I am no metaphysician, no philosopher, nay, no saint. But I am poor and I love the poor. I see what they call the poor of this country and how many there are who feel for them!

Swami Vivekananda

Attaining even mediocrity is often a struggle.

Mason Cooley

The suffering may be moral or physical; and in my opinion it is just as absurd to call a man a coward who destroys himself, as to call a man a coward who dies of a malignant fever.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Sir, he [Bolingbroke] was a scoundrel and a coward: a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotsman to draw the trigger at his death.