Samuel Richardson

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

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

Those who will bear much, shall have much to bear.

All our pursuits, from childhood to manhood, are only trifles of different sorts and sizes, proportioned to our years and views.

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

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

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

We are all very ready to believe what we like.

Women are so much in love with compliments that rather than want them, they will compliment one another, yet mean no more by it than the men do.

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

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.

The World, thinking itself affronted by superior merit, takes delight to bring it down to its own level.

The plays and sports of children are as salutary to them as labor and work are to grown persons.

The difference in the education of men and women must give the former great advantages over the latter, even where geniuses are equal.

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

It is better to be thought perverse than insincere.

Smatterers in learning are the most opinionated.

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

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.

Those we dislike can do nothing to please us.

Women who have had no lovers, or having had one, two or three, have not found a husband, have perhaps rather had a miss than a loss, as men go.

A brother may not be a friend but a friend will always be a brother.

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

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

The life of a good man is a continual warfare with his passions.

The English, the plain English, of the politest address of a gentleman to a lady is, I am now, dear Madam, your humble servant: Pray be so good as to let me be your Lord and Master.

O! what a Godlike Power is that of doing Good! I envy the Rich and the Great for nothing else!

Handsome husbands often make a wifes heart ache.

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

Air and manners are more expressive than words.

Love will draw an elephant through a key-hole.

A feeling heart is a blessing that no one, who has it, would be without; and it is a moral security of innocence; since the heart that is able to partake of the distress of another, cannot wilfully give it.

Men generally are afraid of a wife who has more understanding than themselves.

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

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

A beautiful woman must expect to be more accountable for her steps than one less attractive.

There would be no supporting life were we to feel quite as poignantly for others as we do for ourselves.

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

Necessity may well be called the mother of invention but calamity is the test of integrity.

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

There are men who think themselves too wise to be religious.

Love before marriage is absolutely necessary.

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

People hardly ever do anything in anger of which they do not repent.

Those who have least to do are generally the most busy people in the world.

All human excellence is but comparative. There may be persons who excel us as much as we fancy we excel the meanest.

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

Honeymoon lasts not nowadays above a fortnight.

Vast is the field of Science. The more a man knows, the more he will find he has to know.

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

A man may keep a woman, but not his estate.

It is much easier to find fault with others, than to be faultless ourselves.

Calamity is the test of integrity.

Love is not a volunteer thing.

Prejudices in disfavor of a person fix deeper, and are much more difficult to be removed, than prejudices in favor.

All human excellence is but comparative. There may be persons who excel us, as much as we fancy we excel the meanest.

What we want to tell, we wish our friend to have curiosity to hear.

A beautiful woman must expect to be more accountable for her steps, than one less attractive.

What likelihood is there of corrupting a man who has no ambition?

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.

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.

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

Those who can least bear a jest upon themselves, will be most diverted with one passed on others.

Would Alexander, madman as he was, have been so much a madman, had it not been for Homer?

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

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

Sorrow makes an ugly face odious.

Women love to be called cruel, even when they are kindest.

Hope is the cordial that keeps life from stagnating.

Parents sometimes make not those allowances for youth, which, when young, they wished to be made for themselves.

Women do not often fall in love with philosophers.

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.

From sixteen to twenty, all women, kept in humor by their hopes and by their attractions, appear to be good-natured.

The Cause of Women is generally the Cause of Virtue.

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.

Marry first, and love will come after is a shocking assertion; since a thousand things may happen to make the state but barely tolerable, when it is entered into with mutual affection.

Marriage is the highest state of friendship. If happy, it lessens our cares by dividing them, at the same time that it doubles our pleasures by mutual participation.

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

There is a pride, a self-love, in human minds that will seldom be kept so low as to make men and women humbler than they ought to be.

To be a clergyman, and all that is compassionate and virtuous, ought to be the same thing.

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

The mind can be but full. It will be as much filled with a small disagreeable occurrence, having no other, as with a large one.

O how can wicked men seem so steady and untouched with such black hearts while poor innocents stand like malefactors before them

A Stander-by is often a better judge of the game than those that play.

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

A good man, though he will value his own countrymen, yet will think as highly of the worthy men of every nation under the sun.

Nothing in human nature is so God-like as the disposition to do good to our fellow-creatures.

Women are always most observed when they seem themselves least to observe, or to lay out for observation.

Handsome husbands often make a wife's heart ache.

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.

A husband's mother and his wife had generally better be visitors than inmates.

Tutors who make youth learned do not always make them virtuous.

Nothing in human nature is so God like as the disposition to do good to our fellow creatures.

Too liberal self-accusations are generally but so many traps for acquittal with applause.

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.

Things we wish to be true are apt to gain too ready credit with us.

Married people should not be quick to hear what is said by either when in ill humor.

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!