Henry fielding quotes

Money will say more in one moment than the most eloquent lover can in years.

Thirst teaches all animals to drink, but drunkenness belongs only to man.

There's one fool at least in every married couple.

A good countenance is a letter of recommendation.

Scarcely one person in a thousand is capable of tasting the happiness of others.

Wicked companions invite us to hell.

When I mention religion I mean the Christian religion; and not only the Christian religion, but the Protestant religion; and not only the Protestant religion, but the Church of England.

Perhaps the summary of good-breeding may be reduced to this rule. "Behave unto all men as you would they should behave unto you." This will most certainly oblige us to treat all mankind with the utmost civility and respect, there being nothing that we desire more than to be treated so by them.

He grew weary of this condescension, and began to treat the opinions of his wife with that haughtiuess and insolence, which none but those who deserve some contempt themselves can bestow, and those only who deserve no contempt can bear.

It is not enough that your designs, nay that your actions, are intrinsically good, you must take care they shall appear so.

The life of a coquette is one constant lie; and the only rule by which you can form any correct judgment of them is that they are never what they seem.

O innocence, how glorious and happy a portion art thou to the breast that possesses thee! thou fearest neither the eyes nor the tongues of men. Truth, the most powerful of all things, is thy strongest friend; and the brighter the light is in which thou art displayed, the more it discovers thy transcendent beauties.

The highest friendship must always lead us to the highest pleasure.

Thwackum was for doing justice, and leaving mercy to heaven.

Contempt of others is the truest symptom of a base and bad heart,--while it suggests itself to the mean and the vile, and tickles there little fancy on every occasion, it never enters the great and good mind but on the strongest motives; nor is it then a welcome guest,--affording only an uneasy sensation, and bringing always with it a mixture of concern and compassion.

All nature wears one universal grin.

Good-breeding is not confined to externals, much less to any particular dress or attitude of the body; it is the art of pleasing, or contributing as much as possible to the ease and happiness of those with whom you converse.

A beau is everything of a woman but the sex, and nothing of a man beside it.

Fashion is the science of appearance, and it inspires one with the desire to seem rather than to be.

Some virtuous women are too liberal in their insults to a frail sister; but virtue can support itself without borrowing any assistance from the vices of other women.

Penny saved is a penny got.

Good writers will, indeed, do well to imitate the ingenious traveller. . .who always proportions his stay in any place.

For I hope my Friends will pardon me, when I declare, I know none of them without a Fault; and I should be sorry if I could imagine, I had any Friend who could not see mine. Forgiveness, of this Kind, we give and demand in Turn.

Riches without charity are nothing worth. They are a blessing only to him who makes them a blessing to others.

What's vice today may be virtue, tomorrow.

However exquisitely human nature may have been described by writers, the true practical system can be learned only in the world.

for nothing can be more reasonable, than that slaves and flatterers should exact the same taxes on all below them, which they themselves pay to all above them.

The greatest part of mankind labor under one delirium or another; and Don Quixote differed from the rest, not in madness, but the species of it. The covetous, the prodigal, the superstitious, the libertine, and the coffee-house politician, are all Quixotes in their several ways.

Life may as properly be called an art as any other.

The slander of some people is as great a recommendation as the praise of others.

There is a sort of knowledge beyond the power of learning to bestow, and this is to be had in conversation; so necessary is this to the understanding the characters of men, that none are more ignorant of them than those learned pedants whose lives have been entirely consumed in colleges and among books; for however exquisitely human nature may have been described by writers the true practical system can be learned only in the world.

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

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.

Handsome is that handsome does.

The same animal which hath the honour to have some part of his flesh eaten at the table of a duke, may perhaps be degraded in another part,and some of his limbs gibbeted, as it were, in the vilest stall in town.

When children are doing nothing, they are doing mischief.

Love may be likened to a disease in this respect, that when it is denied a vent in one part, it will certainly break out in another; hence what a woman's lips often conceal, her eyes, her blushes, and many little involuntary actions betray.

Guilt has very quick ears to an accusation.

The devil take me, if I think anything but love to be the object of love.

Conscience - the only incorruptible thing about us.

A tender-hearted and compassionate disposition, which inclines men to pity and feel the misfortunes of others, and which is, even for its own sake, incapable of involving any man in ruin and misery, is of all tempers of mind the most amiable; and though it seldom receives much honor, is worthy of the highest.

Nothing more aggravates ill success than the near approach of good.

Want compassion is not to be numbered among the general faults of mankind. The black ingredient which fouls our disposition is envy. Hence our eyes, it is to be feared, are seldom turned up to those who are manifestly greater, better, wiser, or happier than ourselves, without some degree of malignity, we commonly look downward on the mean and miserable with sufficient benevolence and pity.

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

Wine is a turncoat; first a friend and then an enemy.

I look upon the vulgar observation, 'That the devil often deserts his friends, and leaves them in the lurch,' to be a great abuse on that gentleman's character. Perhaps he may sometimes desert those who are only his cup acquaintance; or who, at most, are but half his; but he generally stands by those who are thoroughly his servants, and helps them off in all extremities, till their bargain expires.

We must eat to live, and not live to eat.

A rich man without charity is a rogue; and perhaps it would be no difficult matter to prove that he is also a fool.

Money is the fruit of evil, as often as the root of it.

Make money your god, and it will plague you like the devil.

There is scarcely any man, how much soever he may despise the character of a flatterer, but will condescend in the meanest manner to flatter himself.

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

The prudence of the best heads is often defeated by tenderness of the best hearts.

It is a trite but true definition that examples work more forcibly on the mind than precepts.

Domestic happiness is the end of almost all our pursuits, and the common reward of all our pains. When men find themselves forever barred from this delightful fruition, they are lost to all industry, and grow careless of all their worldly affairs. Thus they become bad subjects, bad relations, bad friends, and bad men.

Public schools are the nurseries of all vice and immorality.

There cannot be a move glorious object in creation than a human being replete with benevolence, meditating in what manner he might render himself most acceptable to his Creator by doing most good to His creatures.

In a debate, rather pull to pieces the argument of thy antagonists than offer him any of thy own; for thus thou wilt fight him in his own country.

Neither great poverty nor great riches will hear reason

Human life very much resembles a game of chess: for, as in the latter, while a gamester is too attentive to secure himself very strongly on one side of the board, he is apt to leave an unguarded opening on the other, so doth it often happen in life.

It may be laid down as a general rule, that no woman who hath any great pretensions to admiration is ever well pleased in a company where she perceives herself to fill only the second place.

A lottery is a taxation on all of the fools in creation.

Fashion is the great governor of this world; it presides, not only in matters of dress and amusement, but in law, physic, politics, religion, and all other things of the gravest kind; indeed, the wisest of men would be puzzled to give any better reason why particular forms in all these have been at certain times universally received, and at others universally rejected, than that they were in or out of fashion.

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.

And here, I believe, the wit is generally misunderstood. In reality, it lies in desiring another to kiss your a-- for having just before threatened to kick his; for I have observed very accurately, that no one ever desires you to kick that which belongs to himself, nor offers to kiss this part in another.

Prudence is a duty which we owe ourselves, and if we will be so much our own enemies as to neglect it, we are not to wonder if the world is deficient in discharging their duty to us; for when a man lays the foundation of his own ruin, others too often are apt to build upon it.

For parents to restrain the inclinations of their children in marriage is an usurped power.

A wonder lasts but nine days, and then the puppy's eyes are open.

The woman and the soldier who do not defend the first pass will never defend the last.

A newspaper consists of just the same number of words, whether there be any news in it or not.

Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.

Never trust the man who has reason to suspect that you know he hath injured you.

Tea! The panacea for everything from weariness to a cold to a murder Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.

There is nothing a Man of good Sense dreads so much in a Wife, as her having more Sense than himself.

It is not from nature, but from education and habits, that our wants are chiefly derived.

It is a good maxim to trust a person entirely or not at all.

When mighty roast beef was the Englishman's food It ennobled our hearts and enriched our blood-- Our soldiers were brave and our courtiers were good. Oh! the roast beef of England. And Old England's roast beef.

Great joy, especially after a sudden change of circumstances, is apt to be silent, and dwells rather in the heart than on the tongue.

A good heart will, at all times, betray the best head in the world.

Success is a fruit of slow growth.

A good man therefore is a standing lesson to us all.

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

What was said by the Latin poet of labor--that it conquers all things--is much more true when applied to impudence.

Good-humor will even go so far as often to supply the lack of wit.

Wine and youth are fire upon fire.

Adversity is the trial of principle. Without it, a man hardly knows whether he is honest or not.

In the forming of female friendships beauty seldom recommends one woman to another.

Commend a fool for his wit, or a rogue for his honesty and he will receive you into his favour.

What caricature is in painting, burlesque is in writing; and in the same manner the comic writer and painter correlate to each other; as in the former, the painter seems to have the advantage, so it is in the latter infinitely on the side of the writer. For the monstrous is much easier to paint than describe, and the ridiculous to describe than paint.

It hath been often said, that it is not death, but dying, which is terrible.

We are as liable to be corrupted by books, as by companions.

No one hath seen beauty in its highest lustre who hath never seen it in distress.

Wisdom is the talent of buying virtuous pleasures at the cheapest rate.

Gaming is a vice the more dangerous as it is deceitful; and, contrary to every other species of luxury, flatters its votaries with the hopes of increasing their wealth; so that avarice itself is so far from securing us against its temptations that it often betrays the more thoughtless and giddy part of mankind into them.

We should not be too hasty in bestowing either our praise or censure on mankind, since we shall often find such a mixture of good and evil in the same character, that it may require a very accurate judgment and a very elaborate inquiry to determine on which side the balance turns.

There is no zeal blinder than that which is inspired with a love of justice against offenders.

LOVE: A word properly applied to our delight in particular kinds of food; sometimes metaphorically spoken of the favorite objects of all our appetites.

There is nothing so useful to man in general, nor so beneficial to particular societies and individuals, as trade. This is that alma mater, at whose plentiful breast all mankind are nourished.

Giving comfort under affliction requires that penetration into the human mind, joined to that experience which knows how to soothe, how to reason, and how to ridicule; taking the utmost care never to apply those arts improperly.

His designs were strictly honourable, as the phrase is; that is, to rob a lady of her fortune by way of marriage.

Enough is equal to a feast.

Let no man be sorry he has done good, because others have done evil.

When I'm not thanked at all, I'm thanked enough.

There are two considerations which always imbitter the heart of an avaricious man--the one is a perpetual thirst after more riches, the other the prospect of leaving what he has already acquired.

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

Men who pay for what they eat will insist on gratifying their palates

A broken heart is a distemper which kills many more than is generally imagined, and would have a fair title to a place in the bills of mortality, did it not differ in one instance from all other diseases, namely, that no physicians can cure it.

Now in reality, the world has paid too great a compliment to critics, and has imagined them to be men of much greater profundity than they really are.

Where the law ends tyranny begins.

Custom may lead a man into many errors; but it justifies none.

A man may go to heaven with half the pains it cost him to purchase hell.

Most men like in women what is most opposite their own characters.

Dancing begets warmth, which is the parent of wantonness. It is, Sir, the great grandfather of cuckoldom.

Yes, I had two strings to my bow; both golden ones, egad! and both cracked.

There is not in the universe a more ridiculous, nor a more contemptible animal, than a proud clergyman.

To the composition of novels and romances, nothing is necessary but paper, pens, and ink, with the manual capacity of using them.

A good face they say, is a letter of recommendation. O Nature, Nature, why art thou so dishonest, as ever to send men with these false recommendations into the World!

We endeavor to conceal our vices under the disguise of the opposite virtues.

When the effects of female jealousy do not appear openly in their proper colours of rage and fury, we may suspect that mischievous passion to be at work privately, and attempting to undermine, what it doth not attack above-ground.

What is commonly called love, namely the desire of satisfying a voracious appetite with a certain quantity of delicate white human flesh.

An author ought to consider himself, not as a gentleman who gives a private or eleemosynary treat, but rather as one who keeps a public ordinary, at which all persons are welcome for their money.

...the act of eating,which hath by several wise men been considered as extremely mean and derogatory from the philosophic dignity, must be in some measure performed by the greatest prince, hero, or philosopher upon earth; nay, sometimes Nature hath been so frolicsome as to exact of these dignified characters a much more exorbitant share of this office than she hath obliged those of the lowest orders to perform.

It is much easier to make good men wise, than to make bad men good.

The constant desire of pleasing which is the peculiar quality of some, may be called the happiest of all desires in this that it rarely fails of attaining its end when not disgraced by affectation.

A truly elegant taste is generally accompanied with excellency of heart.