Samuel Richardson Quotes
Quotations and aphorisms by 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
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There is but one pride pardonable; that of being above doing a base or dishonorable action.
~Samuel Richardson
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Men generally are afraid of a wife who has more understanding than themselves.
~Samuel Richardson
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Would Alexander, madman as he was, have been so much a madman, had it not been for Homer?
~Samuel Richardson
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The pleasures of the mighty are obtained by the tears of the poor.
~Samuel Richardson
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What we want to tell, we wish our friend to have curiosity to hear.
~Samuel Richardson
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The little words in the Republic of Letters, like the little folks in a nation, are the most useful and significant.
~Samuel Richardson
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Those who will bear much, shall have much to bear.
~Samuel Richardson
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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
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Honeymoon lasts not nowadays above a fortnight.
~Samuel Richardson
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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.
~Samuel Richardson
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Smatterers in learning are the most opinionated.
~Samuel Richardson
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Handsome husbands often make a wife's heart ache.
~Samuel Richardson
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Those who have least to do are generally the most busy people in the world.
~Samuel Richardson
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Those who can least bear a jest upon themselves, will be most diverted with one passed on others.
~Samuel Richardson
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Every scholar, I presume, is not, necessarily, a man of sense.
~Samuel Richardson
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A beautiful woman must expect to be more accountable for her steps, than one less attractive.
~Samuel Richardson
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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.
~Samuel Richardson
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Love is not a volunteer thing.
~Samuel Richardson
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Every one, more or less, loves Power, yet those who most wish for it are seldom the fittest to be trusted with it.
~Samuel Richardson
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For the human mind is seldom at stay: If you do not grow better, you will most undoubtedly grow worse.
~Samuel Richardson
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A Stander-by is often a better judge of the game than those that play.
~Samuel Richardson
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A man may keep a woman, but not his estate.
~Samuel Richardson
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Parents sometimes make not those allowances for youth, which, when young, they wished to be made for themselves.
~Samuel Richardson
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It may be very generous in one person to offer what it would be ungenerous in another to accept.
~Samuel Richardson
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Sorrow makes an ugly face odious.
~Samuel Richardson
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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
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Let a man do what he will by a single woman, the world is encouragingly apt to think Marriage a sufficient amends.
~Samuel Richardson
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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
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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
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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
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The plays and sports of children are as salutary to them as labor and work are to grown persons.
~Samuel Richardson
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Vast is the field of Science. The more a man knows, the more he will find he has to know.
~Samuel Richardson
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Women do not often fall in love with philosophers.
~Samuel Richardson
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From sixteen to twenty, all women, kept in humor by their hopes and by their attractions, appear to be good-natured.
~Samuel Richardson
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A widow's refusal of a lover is seldom so explicit as to exclude hope.
~Samuel Richardson
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Love will draw an elephant through a key-hole.
~Samuel Richardson
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Quantity in diet is more to be regarded than quality. A full meal is a great enemy both to study and industry.
~Samuel Richardson
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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!
~Samuel Richardson
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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
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Tutors who make youth learned do not always make them virtuous.
~Samuel Richardson
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Men will bear many things from a kept mistress, which they would not bear from a wife.
~Samuel Richardson
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There are men who think themselves too wise to be religious.
~Samuel Richardson
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What likelihood is there of corrupting a man who has no ambition?
~Samuel Richardson
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Prejudices in disfavor of a person fix deeper, and are much more difficult to be removed, than prejudices in favor.
~Samuel Richardson
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Necessity may well be called the mother of invention but calamity is the test of integrity.
~Samuel Richardson
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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
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People who act like angels ought to have angels to deal with.
~Samuel Richardson
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Women love to be called cruel, even when they are kindest.
~Samuel Richardson
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The Cause of Women is generally the Cause of Virtue.
~Samuel Richardson
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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.
~Samuel Richardson
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Where words are restrained, the eyes often talk a great deal.
~Samuel Richardson
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Calamity is the test of integrity.
~Samuel Richardson
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O! what a Godlike Power is that of doing Good! I envy the Rich and the Great for nothing else!
~Samuel Richardson
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Shame is a fitter and generally a more effectual punishment for a child than beating.
~Samuel Richardson
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Love before marriage is absolutely necessary.
~Samuel Richardson
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Great allowances ought to be made for the petulance of persons laboring under ill-health.
~Samuel Richardson
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To be a clergyman, and all that is compassionate and virtuous, ought to be the same thing.
~Samuel Richardson
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Women are always most observed when they seem themselves least to observe, or to lay out for observation.
~Samuel Richardson
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All human excellence is but comparative. There may be persons who excel us, as much as we fancy we excel the meanest.
~Samuel Richardson
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We are all very ready to believe what we like.
~Samuel Richardson
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It is better to be thought perverse than insincere.
~Samuel Richardson
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People of little understanding are most apt to be angry when their sense is called into question.
~Samuel Richardson
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The life of a good man is a continual warfare with his passions.
~Samuel Richardson
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There would be no supporting life were we to feel quite as poignantly for others as we do for ourselves.
~Samuel Richardson
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The difference in the education of men and women must give the former great advantages over the latter, even where geniuses are equal.
~Samuel Richardson
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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
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The companion of an evening, and the companion for life, require very different qualifications.
~Samuel Richardson
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Those we dislike can do nothing to please us.
~Samuel Richardson
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Nothing in human nature is so God-like as the disposition to do good to our fellow-creatures.
~Samuel Richardson
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All our pursuits, from childhood to manhood, are only trifles of different sorts and sizes, proportioned to our years and views.
~Samuel Richardson
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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
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The World, thinking itself affronted by superior merit, takes delight to bring it down to its own level.
~Samuel Richardson
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Hope is the cordial that keeps life from stagnating.
~Samuel Richardson
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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
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The laws were not made so much for the direction of good men, as to circumscribe the bad.
~Samuel Richardson
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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.
~Samuel Richardson
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It is much easier to find fault with others, than to be faultless ourselves.
~Samuel Richardson
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Nothing dries sooner than tears.
~Samuel Richardson
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A husband's mother and his wife had generally better be visitors than inmates.
~Samuel Richardson
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Married people should not be quick to hear what is said by either when in ill humor.
~Samuel Richardson
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Love gratified is love satisfied, and love satisfied is indifference begun.
~Samuel Richardson
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