Samuel Richardson Quotes

98 Sourced Quotes

Love is a blazing, crackling, green-wood flame, as much smoke as flame; friendship, married friendship particularly, is a steady,intense, comfortable fire. Love, in courtship, is friendship in hope; in matrimony, friendship upon proof.

Samuel Richardson
Distresses, however heavy at the time, appear light, and even joyous, to the reflecting mind, when worthily overcome.

Samuel Richardson
We can all be good when we have no temptation or provocation to the contrary.

Samuel Richardson
Great allowances ought to be made for the petulance of persons laboring under ill-health.

Samuel Richardson
It is but shaping the bribe to the taste, and every one has his price.

Samuel Richardson
A fop takes great pains to hang out a sign, by his dress, of what he has within.

Samuel Richardson
And I believe that anatomists allow that women have more watery heads than men.

Samuel Richardson
A good man will not engage even in a national cause, without examining the justice of it.

Samuel Richardson
We all know by theory that there is no permanent happiness in this life: But the weight of the precept is not felt in the same manner as when it is confirmed to us by a heavy calamity.

Samuel Richardson
The readiness with which women are apt to forgive the men who have deceived other women; and that inconsiderate notion of too many of them that a reformed rake makes the best husband, are great encouragements to vile men to continue their profligacy.

Samuel Richardson
Tho' Beauty is generally the creature of fancy, yet are there some who will be Beauties in every eye.

Samuel Richardson
A man who insults the modesty of a woman, as good as tells her that he has seen something in her conduct that warranted his presumption.

Samuel Richardson
A good man will extend his munificence to the industrious poor of all persuasions reduced by age, infirmity, or accident; to thosewho labour under incurable maladies; and to the youth of either sex, who are capable of beginning the world with advantage, but have not the means.

Samuel Richardson
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?

Samuel Richardson
What pleasure can those over-happy persons know, who, from their affluence and luxury, always eat before they are hungry and drink before they are thirsty?

Samuel Richardson
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!

Samuel Richardson
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!

Samuel Richardson
I have my choice: who can wish for more? Free will enables us to do everything well while imposition makes a light burden heavy.

Samuel Richardson
We have nothing to do, but to choose what is right, to be steady in the pursuit of it, and leave the issue to Providence.

Samuel Richardson
A prudent person, having to do with a designing one, will always distrust most when appearances are fairest.

Samuel Richardson
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.

Samuel Richardson
Though a censure lies against those who are poor and proud, yet is Pride sooner to be forgiven in a poor person than in a rich one; since in the latter it is insult and arrogance; in the former, it may be a defense against temptations to dishonesty; and, if manifested on proper occasions, may indicate a natural bravery of mind, which the frowns of fortune cannot depress.

Samuel Richardson
Some children act as if they thought their parents had nothing to do, but to see them established in the world and then quit it.

Samuel Richardson
Those who respect age, deserve to live to be old, and to be respected themselves.

Samuel Richardson
It may be very generous in one person to offer what it would be ungenerous in another to accept.

Samuel Richardson
Nothing can be more wounding to a spirit not ungenerous, than a generous forgiveness.

Samuel Richardson
As a child is indulged or checked in its early follies, a ground is generally laid for the happiness or misery of the future man.

Samuel Richardson
Be sure don't let people's telling you, you are pretty, puff you up; for you did not make yourself, and so can have no praise due to you for it. It is virtue and goodness only, that make the true beauty.

Samuel Richardson
Whenever we approve, we can find a hundred good reasons to justify our approbation. Whenever we dislike, we can find a thousand to justify our dislike.

Samuel Richardson
People of little understanding are most apt to be angry when their sense is called into question.

Samuel Richardson