Samuel Richardson
I have my choice: who can wish for more? Free will enables us to do everything well while imposition makes a light burden heavy.Collection: Light
Youth is rather to be pitied than envied by people in years since it is doomed to toil through the rugged road of life which the others have passed through, in search of happiness that is not to be met with in it and that, at the highest, can be compounded for only by the blessing of a contented mind.Collection: Happiness
The wife of a self-admirer must expect a very cold and negligent husband.Collection: Husband
The uselessness and expensiveness of modern women multiply bachelors.Collection: Women
The most innocent heart is generally the most credulous.Collection: Heart
The coyest maids make the fondest wives.Collection: Men
Men are less forgiving than women.Collection: Forgiveness
Reverence to a woman in courtship is less to be dispensed with, as, generally, there is but little of it shown afterwards.Collection: Men
The readiness with which women are apt to forgive the men who have deceived other women; and that inconsiderate notion of too many of them that a reformed rake makes the best husband, are great encouragements to vile men to continue their profligacy.Collection: Encouragement
The first vice of the first woman was curiosity, and it runs through the whole sex.Collection: Running
The woman who thinks meanly of herself is any man's purchase.Collection: Women
What likelihood is there of corrupting a man who has no ambition.Collection: Ambition
Though a censure lies against those who are poor and proud, yet is Pride sooner to be forgiven in a poor person than in a rich one; since in the latter it is insult and arrogance; in the former, it may be a defense against temptations to dishonesty; and, if manifested on proper occasions, may indicate a natural bravery of mind, which the frowns of fortune cannot depress.Collection: Depressing
'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.Collection: Passion
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.Collection: Sex
The world, the wise world, that never is wrong itself, judges always by events. And if he should use me ill, then I shall be blamed for trusting him: if well, O then I did right, to be sure!--But how would my censurers act in my case, before the event justifies or condemns the action, is the question.Collection: Wise
Tired of myself longing for what I have notCollection: Tired
Old men, imagining themselves under obligation to young paramours, seldom keep any thing from their knowledge.Collection: Men
A fop takes great pains to hang out a sign, by his dress, of what he has within.Collection: Pain
An acknowledged love sanctifies every little freedom; and little freedoms beget great ones.Collection: Temptation
A prudent person, having to do with a designing one, will always distrust most when appearances are fairest.Collection: Design
Things we wish to be true are apt to gain too ready credit with us.Collection: Wish
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.Collection: Children
If a woman knows a man to be a libertine, yet will, without scruple, give him her company, he will think half the ceremony between them is over; and will probably only want an opportunity to make her repent of her confidence in him.Collection: Opportunity
Chastity, like piety, is a uniform grace.Collection: Grace
It is but shaping the bribe to the taste, and every one has his price.Collection: Taste
Too liberal self-accusations are generally but so many traps for acquittal with applause.Collection: Self
Honesty is good sense, politeness, amiableness,--all in one.Collection: Honesty
Great allowances ought to be made for the petulance of persons labouring under ill-health.Collection: Ill Health
That dangerous but too commonly received notion, that a reformed rake makes the best husband.Collection: Husband
A good man will honor him who lives up to his religious profession, whatever it be.Collection: Religious
Vast is the field of Science... the more a man knows, the more he will find he has to know.Collection: Knowledge
But let not those worthy young women, who may think themselves destined to a single life, repine over-much at their lot; since, possibly, if they have had no lovers, or having had one, two, or three, have not found a husband, they have had rather a miss than a loss, as men go.Collection: Husband
Friendly satire may be compared to a fine lancet, which gently breathes a vein for health's sake.Collection: Friendly
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?Collection: Character
What we look upon as our greatest unhappiness in a difficulty we are involved in, may possibly be the evil hastening to its crisis, and happy days may ensue.Collection: Evil
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.Collection: Lying
Good men must be affectionate men.Collection: Men
Who would not rather be the sufferer than the defrauder?Collection: Men
The person who will bear much shall have much to bear, all the world through.Collection: World
Tis certain that Morality is an indispensable Requisite of true Religion, and there can be none without it. But it would become the Pride and Ignorance of Pagans only, to magnify it, as the Whole of what is necessary.Collection: Ignorance
...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!Collection: Atheist
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.Collection: Friendship
Tis a barbarous temper, and a sign of a very ill nature, to take delight in shocking any one: and, on the contrary, it is the mark of an amiable and a beneficent temper, to say all the kind things one can, without flattery or playing the hypocrite,--and what never fails of procuring the love and esteem of every one; which, next to doing good to a deserving object who wants it, is one of the greatest pleasures of this life.Collection: Hypocrite
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.Collection: Women
We all know by theory that there is no permanent happiness in this life: But the weight of the precept is not felt in the same manner as when it is confirmed to us by a heavy calamity.Collection: Happiness
I am forced, as I have often said, to try to make myself laugh, that I may not cry: for one or other I must do.Collection: Laughing
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.Collection: People
Those who respect age, deserve to live to be old, and to be respected themselves.Collection: Age