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.

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.

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.

Good-humor will even go so far as often to supply the lack of wit.

Perhaps the summary of good-breeding may be reduced to this rule. \'Behave unto all men as you would they should behave unto you.\' This will most certainly oblige us to treat all mankind with the utmost civility and respect, there being nothing that we desire more than to be treated so by them.

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.

The highest friendship must always lead us to the highest pleasure.

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.

The exceptions of the scrupulous put one in mind of some general pardons where everything is forgiven except crimes.

Thirst teaches all animals to drink, but drunkenness belongs only to man.

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.

We endeavor to conceal our vices under the disguise of the opposite virtues.

Dignity and love were never yet boon companions.

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.

The life of a coquette is one constant lie; and the only rule by which you can form any correct judgment of them is that they are never what they seem.

There is a sort of knowledge beyond the power of learning to bestow, and this is to be had in conversation; so necessary is this to the understanding the characters of men, that none are more ignorant of them than those learned pedants whose lives have been entirely consumed in colleges and among books; for however exquisitely human nature may have been described by writers the true practical system can be learned only in the world.

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.

The good or evil we confer on others very often, I believe, recoils on ourselves; for as men of a benign disposition enjoy their own acts of beneficence equally with those to whom they are done, so there are scarce any natures so entirely diabolical as to be capable of doing injuries without paying themselves some pangs for the ruin which they bring on their fellow-creatures.

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.

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.

There is scarcely any man, how much soever he may despise the character of a flatterer, but will condescend in the meanest manner to flatter himself.

Wicked companions invite us to hell.

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.

What caricature is in painting, burlesque is in writing; and in the same manner the comic writer and painter correlate to each other; as in the former, the painter seems to have the advantage, so it is in the latter infinitely on the side of the writer. For the monstrous is much easier to paint than describe, and the ridiculous to describe than paint.

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.

There cannot be a move glorious object in creation than a human being replete with benevolence, meditating in what manner he might render himself most acceptable to his Creator by doing most good to His creatures.

A beau is everything of a woman but the sex, and nothing of a man beside it.

There are two considerations which always imbitter the heart of an avaricious man--the one is a perpetual thirst after more riches, the other the prospect of leaving what he has already acquired.

In a debate, rather pull to pieces the argument of thy antagonists than offer him any of thy own; for thus thou wilt fight him in his own country.

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.