Richard Steele Quotes

The man is mechanically turned, and made for getting. . . . It was verily prettily said that we may learn the little value of fortune by the persons on whom Heaven is pleased to bestow it.

I look upon it as a Point of Morality, to be obliged by those who endeavour to oblige me

Pleasure seizes the whole man who addicts himself to it, and will not give him leisure for any good office in life which contradicts the gayety of the present hour.

The person, whom you favored with a loan, if he be a good man, will think himself in your debt after he has paid you.

The married state, with and without the affection suitable to it, is the completest image of heaven and hell we are capable of receiving in this life.

A woman seldom writes her mind but in her postscript

Compassion does not only refine and civilize human nature, but has something in it more pleasing and agreeable, than what can be met with in such an indolent happiness, such an indifference to mankind, as that in which the stoics placed their wisdom. As love is the most delightful passion, pity is nothing else but love softened by a degree of sorrow: In short, it is a kind of pleasing anguish, anguish as well as generous sympathy, that knits mankind together, and blends them in the same common lot.

When a man is not disposed to hear music, there is not a more disagreeable sound in harmony than that of the violin.

It is a wonderful thing that so many, and they not reckoned absurd, shall entertain those with whom they converse by giving them the history of their pains and aches and imagine such narrations their quota of conversation.

It is an endless and frivolous Pursuit to act by any other Rule than the Care of satisfying our own Minds in what we do

A modest person seldom fails to gain the goodwill of those he converses with, because nobody envies a man who does not appear to be pleased with himself.

There are so few who can grow old with a good grace.

Since our persons are not of our own making, when they are such as appear defective or uncomely, it is, methinks, an honest and laudable fortitude to dare to be ugly.

Violins are the lively, forward, importunate wits, that distinguish themselves by the flourishes of imagination, sharpness of repartee, glances of satire, and bear away the upper part in every consort.

No woman is capable of being beautiful who is not incapable of being false.

Though very troublesome to others, anger is most so to him that has it.

There is hardly that person to be found who is not more concerned for the reputation of wit and sense, than honesty and virtue.

It is a certain sign of an ill heart to be inclined to defamation. They who are harmless and innocent can have no gratification that way; but it ever arises from a neglect of what is laudable in a man's self.

You see, among men who are honored with the common appellation ogentleman, many contradictions to that character.

A man advanced in years that thinks fit to look back on his former life, and calls that only life which was passed with satisfaction and enjoyment, excluding all parts which were not pleasant to him, will find himself very young, if not in infancy.

Such is the weakness of our nature, that when men are a little exalted in their condition they immediately conceive they have additional senses, and their capacities enlarged not only above other men, but above human comprehension itself.

Praise from an enemy is the most pleasing of all commendations.

Nothing can atone for the lack of modesty; without which beauty is ungraceful and wit detestable.

It is a very melancholy reflection that men are usually so weak that it is absolutely necessary for them to know sorrow and pain to be in their right senses.

I love to consider an Infidel, whether distinguished by the title of deist, atheist, or free-thinker.

It has been a sort of maxim, that the greatest art is to conceal art; but I know not how, among some people we meet with, their greatest cunning is to appear cunning.

That man never grows old who keeps a child in his heart

Of all the affections which attend human life, the love of glory is the most ardent.

Whenever you commend, add your reasons for doing so; it is this which distinguishes the approbation of a man of sense from the flattery of sycophants and admiration of fools.

Modesty never rages, never murmurs, never pouts; when it is ill-treated, it pines, it beseeches, it languishes.

Since we cannot promise our selves constant health, let us endeavour at such temper as may be our best support in the decay of it.

Simplicity of all things is the hardest to be copy.

It may be remarked in general, that the laugh of men of wit is for the most part but a feint, constrained kind of half-laugh, as such persons are never without some diffidence about them; but that of fools is the most honest, natural, open laugh in the world.

The world is grown so full of dissimulation and compliment, that men's words are hardly any signification of their thoughts.

Many take pleasure in spreading abroad the weakness of an exalted character.

I know of no manner of speaking so offensive as that of giving praise, and closing it with an exception.

A fool is in himself the object of pity, until he is flattered.

Pleasure, when it is a man's chief purpose, disappoints itself; and the constant application to it palls the faculty of enjoying it.

I cannot think of any character below the flatterer, except he who envies him

The insupportable labor of doing nothing.

It is an impertinent and unreasonable fault in conversation for one man to take up all the discourse.

Conversation never sits easier upon us than when we now and then discharge ourselves in a symphony of laughter, which may not improperly be called the chorus of conversation.

Pride destroys all symmetry and grace, and affectation is a more terrible enemy to fine faces than the small-pox.

He that has sense knows that learning is not knowledge, but rather the art of using it.

It is a secret known but to few, yet of no small use in the conduct of life, that when you fall into a man's conversation, the first thing you should consider is, whether he has a greater inclination to hear you, or that you should hear him.

Mutual good humor is a dress we ought to appear in wherever we meet, and we should make no mention of what concerns ourselves, without it be of matters wherein our friends ought to rejoice.

Among all the diseases of the mind there is not one more epidemical or more pernicious than the love of flattery.

Nothing is more silly than the pleasure some people take in "speaking their minds." A man of this make will say a rude thing for the mere pleasure of saying it, when an opposite behavior, full as innocent, might have preserved his friend, or made his fortune.