Henry Fielding - Joseph Andrews (1742)

11 Sourced Quotes

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

Henry Fielding
It is a trite but true observation, that examples work more forcibly on the mind than precepts.

Henry Fielding
I have found it; I have discovered the cause of all the misfortunes which befell him. A public school, Joseph, was the cause of all the calamaties which he afterwards suffered. Public schools are the nurseries of all vice and immorality.

Henry Fielding
I describe not men, but manners; not an individual, but a species.

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

Henry Fielding
To whom nothing is given, of him can nothing be required.

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

Henry Fielding
A comic writer should of all others be the least excused for deviating from nature, since it may not be always so easy for a serious poet to meet with the great and the admirable; but life every where furnishes an accurate observer with the ridiculous.

Henry Fielding
What a silly fellow must he be who would do the devil's work for free.

Henry Fielding
O vanity, how little is thy force acknowledged or thy operations discerned! How wantonly dost thou deceive mankind under different disguises! Sometimes thou dost wear the face of pity; sometimes of generosity; nay, thou hast the assurance to put on those glorious ornaments which belong only to heroic virtue.

Henry Fielding
As it often happens that the best men are but little known, and consequently cannot extend the usefulness of their examples a great way, the biographer is of great utility, as, by communicating such valuable patterns to the world, he may perhaps do a more extensive service to mankind than the person whose life originally afforded the pattern.

Henry Fielding