Thackeray quotes

Thackeray settled like a meat-fly on whatever one had got for dinner, and made one sick of it.

-John Ruskin
  Fors Clavigera (published1871^84), letter no.31,1 Jul.

   Think of the heroism of Johnson, think of that superb indifference to mortal limitation that set him upon his dictionary, and carried him through triumphantly until the end! Who, if he were wisely considerate of things at large, would ever embark upon any work much more considerable than a halfpenny post-card? Who would project a serial novel, afterThackeray and Dickens had each fallen in mid-course? Who would find heart enough to begin to live, if he dallied with the consideration of death?

- Robert Louis Stevenson
Virginibus Puerisque,'AesTriplex'.