Samuel Richardson Quotes & Sayings

In all Works of This, and of the Dramatic Kind, STORY, or AMUSEMENT, should be considered as little more than the Vehicle to the more necessary INSTRUCTION. — Samuel Richardson

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. — Samuel Richardson

Platonic love is platonic nonsense. — Samuel Richardson

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

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

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. — Samuel Richardson

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

There is a good and a bad light in which every thing that befalls us may be taken. If the human mind will busy itself to make theworst of every disagreeable occurrence, it will never want woe. — Samuel Richardson

He only who gave life has a power over it. — Samuel Richardson

An acknowledged love sanctifies every little freedom; and little freedoms beget great ones. — Samuel Richardson

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

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

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

The coyest maids make the fondest wives. — Samuel Richardson

For my master, bad as I have thought him, is not half so bad as this woman.
To be sure she must be an atheist! — 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

My heart and my hand shall never be separated. — Samuel Richardson

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

'Passion' a word which involves so many feelings. I feel it when we touch; I feel it when we kiss; I feel it when I look at you. For you are my passion; my one true love. — Samuel Richardson

An honest heart is not to be trusted with itself in bad company. — Samuel Richardson

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

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

Honesty is good sense, politeness, amiableness,
all in one. — Samuel Richardson

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

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

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

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

Love will draw an elephant through a key-hole. — Samuel Richardson

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

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. — Samuel Richardson

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

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

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. — Samuel Richardson

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

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

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

The wisest among us is a fool in some things. — Samuel Richardson

Twenty-four is a prudent age for women to marry at. — Samuel Richardson

A husband's mother and his wife had generally better be visitors than inmates — Samuel Richardson

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. — 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

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

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. — Samuel Richardson

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

Have I nothing new, nothing diverting, in my whimsical way, thou askest in one of thy letters to entertain thee with? and thou tellest me that, when I have least to narrate, to speak in the scottish phrase, I am most diverting, a pretty compliment either to thyself , or to me, to both indeed! a sign that thou hast as frothy a heart as I a head ! — Samuel Richardson

The unhappy never want enemies. — Samuel Richardson

How true is the observation that unrequited love turns to deepest hate. — Samuel Richardson

The uselessness and expensiveness of modern women multiply bachelors. — Samuel Richardson

Over-niceness may be under-niceness. — Samuel Richardson

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

The Cause of Women is generally the Cause of Virtue. — Samuel Richardson

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

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

Women do not often fall in love with philosophers. — Samuel Richardson

People hardly ever do anything in anger, of which they do not repent. — Samuel Richardson

Virtue only is the true beauty. — Samuel Richardson

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

Old men, imagining themselves under obligation to young paramours, seldom keep any thing from their knowledge. — Samuel Richardson

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. — Samuel Richardson

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

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

Well, but, Mrs. Jervis, said I, let me ask you, if he can stoop to like such a poor girl as me, as perhaps he may, (for I have read of things almost as strange, from great men to poor damsels,) What can it be for? - He may condescend, perhaps, to think I may be good enough for his harlot; and those things don't disgrace men that ruin poor women, as the world goes. — Samuel Richardson

Women love those best (whether men, women, or children) who give them most pain. — Samuel Richardson

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

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

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

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

By my soul, I can neither eat, drink, nor sleep; nor, what's still worse, love any woman in the world but her. — Samuel Richardson

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. — Samuel Richardson

Men know no medium: They will either, spaniel-like, fawn at your feet, or be ready to leap into your lap. — Samuel Richardson

The person who is worthiest to live, is fittest to die. — Samuel Richardson

Superstitious notions propagated in infancy are hardly ever totally eradicate, not even in minds grown strong enough to despise the like credulous folly in others. — Samuel Richardson

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. — Samuel Richardson

I know not my own heart if it be not absolutely free. — Samuel Richardson

We are all very ready to believe what we like. — Samuel Richardson

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. — Samuel Richardson

I hope, as he assures me, he was not guilty of Indecency; but have Reason to bless God, who, by disabling me in my Faculties, enabled me to preserve my Innocence; and when all my Strength would have signified nothing, magnified himself in my Weakness. — Samuel Richardson

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. — Samuel Richardson

Women are sometimes drawn in to believe against probability by the unwillingness they have to doubt their own merit. — Samuel Richardson

Calamity is the test of integrity. — Samuel Richardson

If women would make themselves appear as elegant to an Husband, as they were desirous to appear to him while a Lover, the Rake, which all women love, would last longer in the Husband than it generally does. — Samuel Richardson

You are all too rich to be happy, child. For must not each of you be the constitutions of your family marry to be still richer? People who know in what their main excellence consists are not to be blamed (are they?) for cultivating and improving what they think most valuable? Is true happiness any part of your family-view? - So far from it, that none of your family but yourself could be happy were they not rich. So let them fret on, grumble and grudge, and accumulate; and wondering what ails them that they have not happiness when they have riches, think the cause is want of more; and so go on heaping up till Death, as greedy an accumulator as themselves, gathers them into his garner! — Samuel Richardson

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

All that hoops are good for is to clean dirty shoes and keep fellows at a distance. — 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

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

Sorrow makes an ugly face odious. — 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

Good men must be affectionate men. — Samuel Richardson

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. — Samuel Richardson

Let this expiate! — 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

Women's eyes are wanderers, and too often bring home guests that are very troublesome to them, and whom, once introduced, they cannot get out of the house. — Samuel Richardson

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

But these great minds cannot avois doing extraordinary things! — Samuel Richardson

The eye is the casement at which the heart generally looks out. Many a woman who will not show herself at the door, has tipt the sly, the intelligible wink from the window. — Samuel Richardson

The most innocent heart is generally the most credulous. — Samuel Richardson

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

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