Henry Fielding
68 quotes
Biography
"Money is the fruit of evil as often as the root of it."
"Oons, sir! do you say that I am drunk? I say, sir, that I am as sober as a judge."
"A crime, which, though perhaps not considered by law as the highest, is in truth and in fact, the blackest sin, which can contaminate the hands, or pollute the soul of man."
"Much may be said on both sides."
"Enough is equal to a feast."
"Depend on me; never fear your enemies. I'll warrant we make more noise than they."
"He in a few minutes ravished this fair creature, or at least would have ravished her, if she had not, by a timely compliance, prevented him."
"Illustrious predecessors."
"For it is very hard, my lord," said a convicted felon at the bar to the late excellent judge Burnet, "to hang a poor man for stealing a horse." "You are not to be hanged sir," answered my ever-honored and beloved friend, "for stealing a horse, but you are to be hanged that horses may not be stolen."
"This story will not go down."
"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."
"Dancing begets warmth, which is the parent of wantonness. It is, Sir, the great grandfather of cuckoldom."
"Love and scandal are the best sweeteneers of tea."
"All Nature wears one universal grin."
"Thy modesty's a candle to thy merit."
"To sun myself in Huncamunca's eyes."
"We must eat to live and live to eat."
"Sir, money, money, the most charming of all things; money, which will say more in one moment than the most elegant lover can in years. Perhaps you will say a man is not young; I answer he is rich. He is not genteel, handsome, witty, brave, good-humoured, but he is rich, rich, rich, rich, rich — that one word contradicts everything you can say against him."
"Penny saved is a penny got."
"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"
"It is a trite but true observation, that examples work more forcibly on the mind than precepts."
"To whom nothing is given, of him can nothing be required."
"I am content; that is a blessing greater than riches; and he to whom that is given need ask no more."
"I describe not men, but manners; not an individual, but a species."