Henry Fielding Quotes

English writer

Every physician almost hath his favourite disease. Clergy are men as well as other folks. There is no zeal blinder than that which is inspired<br />with a love of justice against offenders. I describe not men, but manners; not an individual, but a species. Good writers will, indeed, do well to imitate the ingenious traveller. . .who always proportions his stay in any place. 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. 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. He that dies before sixty, of a cold or consumption, dies, in reality, by a violent death. Tea! The panacea for everything from weariness to a cold to a murder Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea. A good countenance is a letter of recommendation. A man may go to heaven with half the pains it cost him to purchase hell. What a silly fellow must he be who would do the devil's work for free. 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. 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. Wisdom is the talent of buying virtuous pleasures at the cheapest rate. These are called the pious frauds of friendship. 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. 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. There is perhaps no surer mark of folly, than to attempt to correct natural infirmities of those we love. There is an insolence which none but those who themselves deserve contempt can bestow, and those only who deserve no contempt can bear. The devil take me, if I think anything but love to be the object of love. Heroes, notwithstanding the high ideas which, by the means of flatterers, they may entertain of themselves, or the world may conceive of them, have certainly more of mortal than divine about them. It is much easier to make good men wise, than to make bad men good. It is not enough that your designs, nay that your actions, are intrinsically good, you must take care they shall appear so. Let no man be sorry he has done good, because others have done evil. 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. There is not in the universe a more ridiculous, nor a more contemptible animal, than a proud clergyman. Men who pay for what they eat will insist on gratifying their palates A newspaper consists of just the same number of words, whether there be any news in it or not. Considering the unforeseen events of this world, we should be taught that no human condition should inspire men with absolute despair.

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