Henry Fielding Quotations

Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.

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

Without adversity a person hardly knows whether they are honest or not.

Conscience - the only incorruptible thing about us.

Worth begets in base minds, envy; in great souls, emulation.

Guilt has very quick ears to an accusation.

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

Neither great poverty nor great riches will hear reason

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

If you make money your god, it will plague you like the devil.

He that can heroically endure adversity will bear prosperity with equal greatness of soul; for the mind that cannot be dejected by the former is not likely to be transported with the later.

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

Dancing begets warmth, which is the parent of wantonness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

There is an insolence which none but those who themselves deserve contempt can bestow, and those only who deserve no contempt can bear.

When children are doing nothing, they are doing mischief.

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

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

The characteristic of coquettes is affectation governed by whim.

There is perhaps no surer mark of folly, than to attempt to correct natural infirmities of those we love.

When I'm not thanked at all, I'm thanked enough, I've done my duty, and I've done no more.

When widows exclaim loudly against second marriages, I would always lay a wager than the man, If not the wedding day, is absolutely fixed on.

One fool at least in every married couple.

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

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

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

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

It is not death, but dying, which is terrible.

The world have payed too great a compliment to critics, and have imagined them men of much greater profundity than they really are.

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

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

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

Since I have dealt in suds, I could never discover more than two reasons for shaving; the one is to get a beard, the other is to get rid of one

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

I have found it; I have discovered the cause of all the misfortunes which befell him. A public school, Joseph, was the cause of all the calamities which he afterwards suffered. Public schools are the nurseries of all vice and immorality.

We must eat to live and live to eat

It has often been said that it is not death but dying that is terrible.

When widows exclaim loudly against second marriage, I would always lay a wager that the man, if not the wedding-day, is absolutely fixed on.

Composed that monstrous animal a husband and wife.

Flattery is never so agreeable as to our blind side; commend a fool for his wit, or a knave for his honesty, and they will receive you into their bosoms

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

For clergy are men as well as other folks.

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

George was a great dunce, but no matter for that: all men do not thrive in the world according to their learning

Ingratitude never so thoroughly pierces the human breast as when it proceeds from those in whose behalf we have been guilty of transgressions.

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.

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

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.

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.

Gravity is the best cloak for sin in all countries.

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

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.

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.

There are persons of that general philanthropy and easy tempers, which the world in contempt generally calls good-natured, who seem to be sent into the world with the same design with which men put little fish into a pike pond, in order only to be devoured by that voracious water-hero.

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.

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

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

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.

Handsome is that handsome does.

Lo, when two dogs are fighting in the streets, With a third dog one of the two dogs meets; With angry teeth he bites him to the bone, And this dog smarts for what that dog has done.

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

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.

Petition me no petitions, sir, to-day; Let other hours be set apart for business. To-day it is our pleasure to be drunk; And this our queen shall be as drunk as we.

It is well known to all great men, that by conferring an obligation they do not always procure a friend, but are certain of creating many enemies.

Thy modesty 's a candle to thy merit.

The dignity of history.

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

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

Wine and youth are fire upon fire.

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

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

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.

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

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.

the excellence of the mental entertainment consists less in the subject than in the author's skill in well dressing it up.

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.

Hairbreadth missings of happiness look like the insults of Fortune.

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.

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

The blackest ink of fate are sure my lot, And when fate writ my name it made a blot.

Guilt, on the contrary, like a base thief, suspects every eye that beholds him to be privy to his transgressions, and every tongue that mentions his name to be proclaiming them.

Clergy are men as well as other folks.

Every physician almost hath his favourite disease.

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.

No acquisitions of guilt can compensate the loss of that solid inward comfort of mind, which is the sure companion of innocence and virtue; nor can in the least balance the evil of that horror and anxiety which, in their room, guilt introduces into our bosoms.

None of our political writers . . . take notice of any more than three estates, namely, Kings, Lords and Commons . . . passing by in silence that very large and powerful body which form the fourth estate in the community . . . the Mob.

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

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.

To speak a bold truth, I am, after much mature deliberation, inclined to suspect that the public voice hath, in all ages, done much injustice to Fortune, and hath convicted her of many facts in which she had not the least concern.

These are called the pious frauds of friendship.

Where the law ends tyranny begins.

What's vice today may be virtue, tomorrow.

The hounds all join in glorious cry, / The huntsman winds his horn: / And a-hunting we will go.

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