Best 178 quotes of Henry Fielding on MyQuotes

Henry Fielding

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    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.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    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.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

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

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    Affectation proceeds from one of these two causes,--vanity or hypocrisy; for as vanity puts us on affecting false characters, in order to purchase applause; so hypocrisy sets us on an endeavor to avoid censure, by concealing our vices under an appearance of their opposite virtues.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    A good conscience is never lawless in the worst regulated state, and will provide those laws for itself which the neglect of legislators had forgotten to supply.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    A good countenance is a letter of recommendation.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    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!

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

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

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

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

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    A grave aspect to a grave character is of much more consequence than the world is generally aware of; a barber may make you laugh, but a surgeon ought rather to make you cry.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    All nature wears one universal grin.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

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

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    A lover, when he is admitted to cards, ought to be solemnly silent, and observe the motions of his mistress. He must laugh when she laughs, sigh when she sighs. In short, he should be the shadow of her mind. A lady, in the presence of her lover, should never want a looking-glass; as a beau, in the presence of his looking-glass, never wants a mistress.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

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

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    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.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    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.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

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

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

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

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    As a conquered rebellion strengthens a government, or as health is more perfectly established by recovery from some diseases; so anger, when removed, often gives new life to affection.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    As a great part of the uneasiness of matrimony arises from mere trifles,, it would be wise in every young married man to enter into an agreement with his wife, that in all disputes of this kind the party who was most convinced they were right should always surrender the victory. By which means both would be more forward to give up the cause.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    As it is the nature of a kite to devour little birds, so it is the nature of some minds to insult and tyrannize over little people; this being the means which they use to recompense themselves for their extreme servility and condescension to their superiors; 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.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    As it often happens that the best men are but little known, and consequently cannot extend the usefulness of their examples a great way, the biographer is of great utility, as, by communicating such valuable patterns to the world, he may perhaps do a more extensive service to mankind than the person whose life originally afforded the pattern.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    As the malicious disposition of mankind is too well known, and the cruel pleasure which they take in destroying the reputation of others, the use we are to make of this knowledge is, to afford no handle for reproach; for bad as the world is, it seldom falls on anyone who hath not given some slight cause for censure.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    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.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

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

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

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

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    Beauty may be the object of liking--great qualities of admiration--good ones of esteem--but love only is the object of love.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    Can any man have a higher notion of the rule of right and the eternal fitness of things?

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

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

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    Conscience is a judge in every man's breast, which none can cheat or corrupt, and perhaps the only incorrupt thing about him; yet, inflexible and honest as this judge is (however polluted the bench on which he sits), no man can, in my opinion, enjoy any applause which is not there adjudged to be his due.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    Considering the unforeseen events of this world, we should be taught that no human condition should inspire men with absolute despair.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    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.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

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

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

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

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    Dignity and love were never yet boon companions.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    Distance of Time and Place do really cure what they seem to aggravate; and taking Leave of our Friends resembles taking Leave of the World, concerning which it hath been often said, that it is not Death but Dying which is terrible.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    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.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    Every physician almost hath his favourite disease.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    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.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

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

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    Fear hath the common fault of a justice of peace, and is apt to conclude hastily from every slight circumstance, without examining the evidence on both sides.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    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.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    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.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

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

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    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.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    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.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    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.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    Good-nature is that benevolent and amiable temper of mind which disposes us to feel the misfortunes and enjoy the happiness of others, and, consequently, pushes us on to promote the latter and prevent the former; and that without any abstract contemplation on the beauty of virtue, and without the allurements or terrors of religion.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

    Gravity is the best cloak for sin in all countries.

  • By Anonym
    Henry Fielding

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