Samuel Richardson Quotes

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.

to be courted as princesses for a few weeks, in order to be treated as slaves for the rest of our lives.

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:

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.

Sir Charles has made a man of him, once more. His dress is as gay as ever; and, I dare say, he struts as much in it as ever, in company that knows not how he came by it. He reformed! — Bad habits are of the Jerusalem artichoke-kind; once planted, there is no getting them out of the ground.

A husband's mother and his wife had generally better be visitors than inmates

O! what a Godlike Power is that of doing Good! — I envy the Rich and the Great for nothing else!

What, my good Sir, is this span of life, that a passenger through it should seek to overturn the interests of others to establish her own? And can the single life be a grievance? Can it be destitute of the noblest tendernesses?

They say the Church-yard is crouded with more of the living, than of the dead, and there is hardly room for a spade. What an image, on such a day!

Why should the guiltless tremble so, when the guilty can possess their minds in peace?

God direct you according to them, and comfort you! All my fear was (and that more particularly for some of the last past months) that I should have been the mournful survivor. In a very few moments all my sufferings will be over; and God give you, when you come to this unavoidable period of all human vanity, the same happy prospects that are now opening to me! O Sir, believe me, all worldly joys are now nothing; less than nothing:

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?

Women are so much in love with compliments that rather than want them, they will compliment one another, yet mean no more by it than the men do.

let me read over again that fearful letter of yours, that I may get it by heart, and with it feed my distress, and make calamity familiar to me.

Sir John gave us such an account of Sir Hargrave, as helped me not only in the character I have given of him, but let me know that he is a very dangerous and enterprising man. He says, that laughing and light as he is in company, he is malicious, ill-natured, and designing; and sticks at nothing to carry a point on which he has once set his heart. He has ruined, Sir John says, three young creatures already under vows of marriage.