Samuel Richardson Quotes

Let a man do what he will by a single woman, the world is encouragingly apt to think Marriage a sufficient amends.

Every scholar, I presume, is not, necessarily, a man of sense.

The first vice of the first woman was curiosity, and it runs through the whole sex.

Hope is the cordial that keeps life from stagnating.

To what a bad choice is many a worthy woman betrayed, by that false and inconsiderate notion, That a reformed rake makes the best husband!

Quantity in diet is more to be regarded than quality. A full meal is a great enemy both to study and industry.

Love gratified is love satisfied, and love satisfied is indifference begun.

Evil courses can yield pleasure no longer than while thought and reflection can be kept off.

Shame is a fitter and generally a more effectual punishment for a child than beating.

Nothing dries sooner than tears.

There hardly can be a greater difference between any two men, than there too often is, between the same man, a lover and a husband.

The World is not enough used to this way of writing, to the moment. It knows not that in the minutiae lie often the unfoldings ofthe Story, as well as of the heart; and judges of an action undecided, as if it were absolutely decided.

The laws were not made so much for the direction of good men, as to circumscribe the bad.

A man who flatters a woman hopes either to find her a fool or to make her one.

Those commands of superiors which are contrary to our first duties are not to be obeyed.

She who is more ashamed of dishonesty than of poverty will not be easily overcome.

The pleasures of the mighty are obtained by the tears of the poor.

Men will bear many things from a kept mistress, which they would not bear from a wife.

What a world is this! What is there in it desirable? The good we hope for so strangely mixed, that one knows not what to wish for!And one half of mankind tormenting the other, and being tormented themselves in tormenting!

The Nature of Familiar Letters, written, as it were, to the Moment, while the Heart is agitated by Hopes and Fears, on Events undecided, must plead an Excuse for the Bulk of a Collection of this Kind. Mere Facts and Characters might be comprised in a much smaller Compass: But, would they be equally interesting?

There is but one pride pardonable; that of being above doing a base or dishonorable action.

That cruelty which children are permitted to show to birds and other animals will most probably exert itself on their fellow creatures when at years of maturity.

Reverence to a woman in courtship is less to be dispensed with, as, generally, there is but little of it shown afterwards.

Every one, more or less, loves Power, yet those who most wish for it are seldom the fittest to be trusted with it.

People who act like angels ought to have angels to deal with.

A good man will honor him who lives up to his religious profession, whatever it be.

What pity that Religion and Love, which heighten our relish for the things of both worlds, should ever run the human heart into enthusiasm, superstition, or uncharitableness!

The companion of an evening, and the companion for life, require very different qualifications.

The little words in the Republic of Letters, like the little folks in a nation, are the most useful and significant.

The first reading of a Will, where a person dies worth anything considerable, generally affords a true test of the relations' love to the deceased.

For the human mind is seldom at stay: If you do not grow better, you will most undoubtedly grow worse.

The longer a woman remains single, the more apprehensive she will be of entering into the state of wedlock. At seventeen or eighteen, a girl will plunge into it, sometimes without either fear or wit; at twenty, she will begin to think; at twenty-four, will weigh and discriminate; at twenty-eight, will be afraid of venturing; at thirty, will turn about, and look down the hill she has ascended, and sometimes rejoice, sometimes repent, that she has gained that summit sola.

He only who gave life has a power over it.

The richest princes and the poorest beggars are to have one great and just judge at the last day who will not distinguish betweenthem according to their ranks when in life but according to the neglected opportunities afforded to each. How much greater then, as the opportunities were greater, must be the condemnation of the one than of the other?

Whom we fear more than love, we are not far from hating.

Rakes are more suspicious than honest men.

Tis a barbarous temper, and a sign of a very ill nature, to take delight in shocking any one: and, on the contrary, it is the mark of an amiable and a beneficent temper, to say all the kind things one can, without flattery or playing the hypocrite,--and what never fails of procuring the love and esteem of every one; which, next to doing good to a deserving object who wants it, is one of the greatest pleasures of this life.

A widow's refusal of a lover is seldom so explicit as to exclude hope.

Romances in general are calculated rather to fire the imagination, than to inform the judgment.

Smatterers in learning are the most opinionated.

What the unpenetrating world call Humanity, is often no more than a weak mind pitying itself.

Humility is a grace that shines in a high condition but cannot, equally, in a low one because a person in the latter is already, perhaps, too much humbled.

A departure from the truth was hardly ever known to be a single one.

If the education and studies of children were suited to their inclinations and capacities, many would be made useful members of society that otherwise would make no figure in it.

It is a happy art to know when one has said enough. I would leave my hearers wishing me to say more rather than give them cause toshow, by their inattention, that I had said too much.

Honesty is good sense, politeness, amiableness,--all in one.

I am forced, as I have often said, to try to make myself laugh, that I may not cry: for one or other I must do.

Where words are restrained, the eyes often talk a great deal.