Henry Fielding Quotes

English novelist and dramatist (1707–1754)

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Henry Fielding (April 22, 1707 – October 8, 1754) was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humor and satirical prowess and as the author of the novel Tom Jones.

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Alternative Names: Henri Fielding • Scriblerus Secundus • Conny Keyber • Alexander Drawcansir • John Trottplaid • Hercules Vinegar • Henri Filding • Lemuel Gulliver • Petrus Gualterus • Enrique Fielding • Genri Filʹding

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Distinction without a difference.

He was, indeed, in a condition, in which, if reason had interposed, though only to advise, she might have received the answer which one Cleostratus gave many years ago to a silly fellow, who asked him, if he was not ashamed to be drunk? "Are not you," said Cleostratus, "ashamed to admonish a drunken man?" — To say the truth, in a court of justice drunkenness must not be an excuse, yet in a court of conscience it is greatly so.

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

Can any man have a higher notion of the rule of right and the eternal fitness of things?

Thwackum was for doing justice, and leaving mercy to heaven.

Every physician almost hath his favorite disease.

...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.

Reader, I think proper, before we proceed any farther together, to acquaint thee that I intend to digress, through this whole history, as often as I see occasion, of which I am myself a better judge than any pitiful critic..."

...the excellence of the mental entertainment consists less in the subject than in the author's skill in well dressing it up.

The same animal which hath the honour to have some part of his flesh eaten at the table of a duke, may perhaps be degraded in another part,and some of his limbs gibbeted, as it were, in the vilest stall in town.

Men who pay for what they eat will insist on gratifying their palates

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

I have found it; I have discovered the cause of all the misfortunes which befell him. A public school, Joseph, was the cause of all the calamaties which he afterwards suffered. Public schools are the nurseries of all vice and immorality.

They are the affectation of affectation.

I describe not men, but manners; not an individual, but a species.