Henry Fielding
It is much easier to make good men wise, than to make bad men good.Collection: Wise
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.Collection: Heart
There's one fool at least in every married couple.Collection: Couple
Public schools are the nurseries of all vice and immorality.Collection: Education
A good countenance is a letter of recommendation.Collection: Letters
Custom may lead a man into many errors; but it justifies none.Collection: Men
A lottery is a taxation on all of the fools in creation.Collection: Taxation
Riches without charity are nothing worth. They are a blessing only to him who makes them a blessing to others.Collection: Blessing
A beau is everything of a woman but the sex, and nothing of a man beside it.Collection: Sex
Good-humor will even go so far as often to supply the lack of wit.Collection: Wit
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.Collection: Men
Commend a fool for his wit, or a rogue for his honesty and he will receive you into his favour.Collection: Honesty
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.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Lying
Let no man be sorry he has done good, because others have done evil.Collection: Sorry
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.Collection: Lying
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.Collection: Fashion
A good heart will, at all times, betray the best head in the world.Collection: Heart
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.Collection: Writing
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.Collection: Country
Good writers will, indeed, do well to imitate the ingenious traveller. . .who always proportions his stay in any place.Collection: Proportion
What a silly fellow must he be who would do the devil's work for free.Collection: Silly
The highest friendship must always lead us to the highest pleasure.Collection: Friendship
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.Collection: May
A wonder lasts but nine days, and then the puppy's eyes are open.Collection: Eye
When I'm not thanked at all, I'm thanked enough.Collection: Educational
Dancing begets warmth, which is the parent of wantonness. It is, Sir, the great grandfather of cuckoldom.Collection: Dance
Penny saved is a penny got.Collection: Pennies
Money will say more in one moment than the most eloquent lover can in years.Collection: Funny
Enough is equal to a feast.Collection: Enough
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.Collection: May
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.Collection: Games
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.Collection: Book
No one hath seen beauty in its highest lustre who hath never seen it in distress.Collection: Distress
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.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Pain
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.Collection: Character
In the forming of female friendships beauty seldom recommends one woman to another.Collection: Beauty
Tea! The panacea for everything from weariness to a cold to a murder Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.Collection: Tea
Never trust the man who has reason to suspect that you know he hath injured you.Collection: Trust
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.Collection: Art
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.Collection: Character
However exquisitely human nature may have been described by writers, the true practical system can be learned only in the world.Collection: World
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.Collection: Literature
Thirst teaches all animals to drink, but drunkenness belongs only to man.Collection: Animal
Thwackum was for doing justice, and leaving mercy to heaven.Collection: Justice
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.Collection: Reality
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.Collection: Men