Henry Fielding

All nature wears one universal grin.

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

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

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

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

It is not from nature, but from education and habits, that our wants are chiefly derived.

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

When children are doing nothing, they are doing mischief.

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

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

Public schools are the nurseries of all vice and immorality.

There is nothing a man of good sense dreads in a wife so much as her having more sense than himself.

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

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

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

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.

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-humored, but he is rich, rich, rich, rich, rich /that one word contradicts everything you can say against him.

There is a set of religious, or rather moral, writings which teach that virtue is the certain road to happiness, and vice to misery in this world. A very wholesome and comfortable doctrine, and to which we have but one objection, namely, that it is not true.

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.

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!.

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

Dancing begets warmth, which is the parent of wantonness.

Conscience - the only incorruptible thing about us.

Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.

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

Read in order to live.

The characteristic of coquettes is affectation governed by whim.

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