Samuel Richardson
A husband's mother and his wife had generally better be visitors than inmates.
People who act like angels ought to have angels to deal with.
Nothing in human nature is so God-like as the disposition to do good to our fellow-creatures.
Parents sometimes make not those allowances for youth, which, when young, they wished to be made for themselves.
What we want to tell, we wish our friend to have curiosity to hear.
Prejudices in disfavor of a person fix deeper, and are much more difficult to be removed, than prejudices in favor.
A Stander-by is often a better judge of the game than those that play.
Love before marriage is absolutely necessary.
Those who have least to do are generally the most busy people in the world.
Great allowances ought to be made for the petulance of persons laboring under ill-health.
The World, thinking itself affronted by superior merit, takes delight to bring it down to its own level.
Sorrow makes an ugly face odious.
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.
People of little understanding are most apt to be angry when their sense is called into question.
There would be no supporting life were we to feel quite as poignantly for others as we do for ourselves.
There are men who think themselves too wise to be religious.
The Cause of Women is generally the Cause of Virtue.
There is but one pride pardonable; that of being above doing a base or dishonorable action.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The difference in the education of men and women must give the former great advantages over the latter, even where geniuses are equal.
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.
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.
Hope is the cordial that keeps life from stagnating.
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.
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.
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.
It may be very generous in one person to offer what it would be ungenerous in another to accept.
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.
The first step in achieving prosperity and wealth is learning to appreciate what you already have.Collection: Wisdom
Air and manners are more expressive than words.Collection: Air
Friendship is the perfection of love, and superior to love; it is love purified, exalted, proved by experience and a consent of minds. Love, Madam, may, and love does, often stop short of friendship.Collection: Mind Love
A man who flatters a woman hopes either to find her a fool or to make her one.Collection: Men
What a world is this! What is there in it desirable? The good we hope for so strangely mixed, that one knows not what to wish for!And one half of mankind tormenting the other, and being tormented themselves in tormenting!Collection: Life
By my soul, I can neither eat, drink, nor sleep; nor, what's still worse, love any woman in the world but her.Collection: Love
Women love those best (whether men, women, or children) who give them most pain.Collection: Pain
Whom we fear more than love, we are not far from hating.Collection: Fear
Wicked words are the prelude to wicked deeds.Collection: Wicked
The wisest among us is a fool in some things.Collection: Wisdom
What pleasure can those over-happy persons know, who, from their affluence and luxury, always eat before they are hungry and drink before they are thirsty?Collection: Luxury
Those who doubt themselves most generally err least.Collection: Doubt
We can all be good when we have no temptation or provocation to the contrary.Collection: Temptation
I know not my own heart if it be not absolutely free.Collection: Heart
I never knew a man who deserved to be thought well of for his morals who had a slight opinion of our Sex in general.Collection: Sex
Men know no medium: They will either, spaniel-like, fawn at your feet, or be ready to leap into your lap.Collection: Men
The seeds of Death are sown in us when we begin to live, and grow up till, like rampant weeds, they choak the tender flower of life.Collection: Death
Those commands of superiors which are contrary to our first duties are not to be obeyed.Collection: Firsts