Samuel Richardson Quotes

The first collection which he published, intituled PAMELA, exhibited the beauty and superiority of virtue in an innocent and unpolished mind, with the reward which often, even in this life, a protecting Providence bestows on goodness. A young woman of low degree, relating to her honest parents the severe trials she met with from a master who ought to have been the protector, not the assailer of her honour, shews the character of a libertine in its truly contemptible light.

Miss Grandison arose and saluted my cousin; who look’d at Sir Charles with reverence, as well as gratitude; at Miss Grandison with delight; and at me with eyes lifted up. And, after a little struggle for speech; How shall I bear this goodness! said she — This indeed is bringing good out of evil! — Did I not say, my cousin, that I was fallen into the company of angels?

Why should such an angel be plunged so low as into the vulgar offices of domestic life? Were she mine, I should hardly wish to see her a mother unless there were a kind of moral certainty that minds like hers could be propagated.

Nothing can be more wounding to a spirit not ungenerous, than a generous forgiveness.

La mia anima ha la stessa importanza dell'anima di una principessa, anche se come rango io mi trovo alla pari del più umile schiavo.

Just here, Lucy, I laid down my pen, and stept to the glass, to see whether I could not please myself with a wise frown or two; at least with a solemnity of countenance, that, occasionally, I might dash with it my childishness of look; which certainly encouraged this freedom of Miss Barnevelt. But I could not please myself. My muscles have never been used to any-thing but smiling: So favoured, so beloved, by every one of my dear friends; an heart so grateful for all their favours — How can I learn now to frown; or even long to look grave?

I know not my own heart if it be not absolutely free.

Young girls finding themselves vested with new powers, and a set of new inclinations, turn their staring eyes out of themselves; and the first man they see, they imagine, if he be a single man, and but simpers at them, they must receive him as a Lover: Then they return downcast for ogle, that he may ogle on without interruption. They are soon brought to write answers to Letters which confess flames the writer’s heart never felt. The girl doubts not her own gifts, her own consequence; she wonders that her father, mother, and other friends, never told her of these new-found excellencies: She is more and more beautiful in her own eyes, as he more and more flatters her. If her parents are a -verse, the girl is per -verse; and the more, the less discretion there is in her passion. She adopts the word constancy; she declaims against persecution; she calls her idle flame, LOVE; which only was a Something she knew not what to make of — and, like a wandering bee, had it not settled on this flower, would on the next, were it either bitter or sweet.

Charming creature, thought I (but I charge thee, that thou let not any of the sex know my esultation) is it so soon come to this? Am I already lord of the destiny of a Clarissa Harlowe! Am I already the reformed man thou resolvedst I should be, before I had the least encouragement given me? Is it thus, that the more thou knowest me, the less thou seest reason to approve of me? _And can art and design enter into the breat so celestial; To banish me from thee, to insist so rigorously upon my absence, in order to bring me closer to thee, and make the blessing dear? _Well do thy arts justify mine; and encorage me to let loose my plotting genius upon thee.

In the mean time, to Balls, Routes, Drums, and so-forth; and to qualify me for these latter,

I am not to know the contents of his Letter. The hearts of us women, when we are urged to give way to a clandestine and unequal address, or when inclined to favour such a one, are apt, and are pleaded with, to rise against the notions of bargain and sale. Smithfield bargains, you Londoners call them:

Vast is the field of Science … the more a man knows, the more he will find he has to know.

Which was, that as soon as Miss Emily was marriageable, she would endeavour, either by fair means, or foul, to get her into her hands: And if she did, but for one week, she should the next come out the wife of a man she had in view, who would think half the fortune more than sufficient for himself, and make over the other half to her; and then she should come into her right, which she deems to be half of the fortune of which her husband died possessed.

I am not apt to run into grave declamations against the times:

More joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety-and-nine just persons, who need it not.