Henry Fielding Quotes
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.
Good writers will, indeed, do well to imitate the ingenious traveller. . .who always proportions his stay in any place.
However exquisitely human nature may have been described by writers, the true practical system can be learned only in the world.
When I mention religion I mean the Christian religion; and not only the Christian religion, but the Protestant religion; and not only the Protestant religion, but the Church of England.
To the composition of novels and romances, nothing is necessary but paper, pens, and ink, with the manual capacity of using them.
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.
Beauty may be the object of liking--great qualities of admiration--good ones of esteem--but love only is the object of love.
the excellence of the mental entertainment consists less in the subject than in the author's skill in well dressing it up.
It is a trite but true definition that examples work more forcibly on the mind than precepts.
There are those who never reason on what they should do, but what they have done; as if Reason had her eyes behind, and could only see backwards.
Though we may sometimes unintentionally bestow our beneficence on the unworthy, it does not take from the merit of the act. For charity doth not adopt the vices of its objects.
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.
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.
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.
Can any man have a higher notion of the rule of right and the eternal fitness of things?
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.
Great vices are the proper objects of our detestation, smaller faults of our pity, but affectation appears to be the only true source of the ridiculous.
The exceptions of the scrupulous put one in mind of some general pardons where everything is forgiven except crimes.
Some general officers should pay a stricter regard to truth than to call the depopulating other countries the service of their own.
To the generality of men you cannot give a stronger hint for them to impose upon you than by imposing upon yourself.
He that dies before sixty, of a cold or consumption, dies, in reality, by a violent death.
Such indeed was her image, that neither could Shakespeare describe, nor Hogarth paint, nor Clive act, a fury in higher perfection.
Adversity is the trial of principle. Without it a man hardly knows whether he is honest or not.
His designs were strictly honourable as the phrase is: that is to rob a lady of her fortune by way of marriage.
Happy the man and happy he alone He who can call today his own He who secure within can say "Tomorrow do thy worst For I have lived today."
Happy the man and happy he alone He can call today his own. He who secure within can say "Tomorrow do thy worst for I have lived today."
LOVE: A word properly applied to our delight in particular kinds of food sometimes metaphorically spoken of the favorite objects of all our appetites.