Henry Fielding Quotes

122 Sourced Quotes

Tea! The panacea for everything from weariness to a cold to a murder. Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.

Henry Fielding
The raillery which is consistent with good-breeding is a gentle animadversion of some foible, which, while it raises the laugh in the rest of the company, doth not put the person rallied out of countenance, or expose him to shame or contempt. On the contrary, the jest should be so delicate that the object of it should be capable of joining in the mirth it occasions.

Henry Fielding
I am content; that is a blessing greater than riches; and he to whom that is given need ask no more.

Henry Fielding
Money is the fruit of evil as often as the root of it.

Henry Fielding
A lottery is a taxation
Upon all the fools in creation
And Heaven be praised
It is easily rais'd,
Credulity's always in fashion.

Henry Fielding
It hath been often said, that it is not death, but dying which is terrible.

Henry Fielding
Let no man be sorry he has done good, because others concerned with him have done evil! If a man has acted right, he has done well, though along; if wrong, the sanction of all mankind will not justify him.

Henry Fielding
When a man lays the foundation of his own ruin, others will, I am afraid, be too apt to build upon it.

Henry Fielding
Can any man have a higher notion of the rule of right and the eternal fitness of things?

Henry Fielding
For I hope my Friends will pardon me, when I declare, I know none of them without a Fault; and I should be sorry if I could imagine, I had any Friend who could not see mine. Forgiveness, of this Kind, we give and demand in Turn.

Henry Fielding
Lo, when two dogs are fighting in the streets,
With a third dog one of the two dogs meets;
With angry teeth he bites him to the bone,
And this dog smarts for what that dog has done.

Henry Fielding
The only source of the true Ridiculous (as it appears to me) is affectation

Henry Fielding
He in a few minutes ravished this fair creature, or at least would have ravished her, if she had not, by a timely compliance, prevented him.

Henry Fielding
A tender-hearted and compassionate disposition, which inclines men to pity and feel the misfortunes of others, and which is, even for its own sake, incapable of involving any man in ruin and misery, is of all tempers of mind the most amiable; and though it seldom receives much honor, is worthy of the highest.

Henry Fielding
Some virtuous women are too liberal in their insults to a frail sister; but virtue can support itself without borrowing any assistance from the vices of other women.

Henry Fielding
No one hath seen beauty in its highest lustre who hath never seen it in distress.

Henry Fielding
Some folks rail against other folks, because other folks have what some folks would be glad of.

Henry Fielding
A rich man without charity is a rogue; and perhaps it would be no difficult matter to prove that he is also a fool.

Henry Fielding
Perhaps the summary of good-breeding may be reduced to this rule. "Behave unto all men as you would they should behave unto you." This will most certainly oblige us to treat all mankind with the utmost civility and respect, there being nothing that we desire more than to be treated so by them.

Henry Fielding
Hairbreadth missings of happiness look like the insults of Fortune.

Henry Fielding
To speak a bold truth, I am, after much mature deliberation, inclined to suspect that the public voice hath, in all ages, done much injustice to Fortune, and hath convicted her of many facts in which she had not the least concern.

Henry Fielding
It is not from nature, but from education and habits, that our wants are chiefly derived.

Henry Fielding
However exquisitely human nature may have been described by writers, the true practical system can be learned only in the world.

Henry Fielding
It is admirably remarked, by a most excellent writer, that zeal can no more hurry a man to act in direct opposition to itself than a rapid stream can carry a boat against its own current.

Henry Fielding
No acquisitions of guilt can compensate the loss of that solid inward comfort of mind, which is the sure companion of innocence and virtue; nor can in the least balance the evil of that horror and anxiety which, in their room, guilt introduces into our bosoms.

Henry Fielding