Samuel Richardson Quotes

Lady Olivia enquired after the distance of North hamptonshire. She will make the tour of England, she says, and visit me there. I was obliged to say I should take her visit as an honour. Wicked Politeness! Of how many falshoods dost thou make the people, who are called polite, guilty!

What then, presumptuous Pamela, dost thou here, thought I? Quit with Speed these guilty Banks, and flee from these dashing Waters, that even in their sounding Murmurs, this still Night, reproach thy Rashness! Tempt not God's Good|ness on the mossy Banks, that have been Witnesses of thy guilty Intentions; and while thou hast Power left thee, avoid the tempting Evil, lest thy grand Enemy, now repuls'd by Divine Grace, and due Reflection, return to the Charge with a Force that thy Weakness may not be able to resist! And lest one rash Moment destroy all the Convictions, which now have aw'd thy rebellious Mind into Duty and Resignation to the Divine Will!

These vile men! I believe I shall hate them all. Did they partake — But not half so grateful as the blackbirds: They rather look big with insolence, than perch near, and sing a song to confort the poor souls they have so dreadfully mortified. Other birds, as I have observed (sparrows, in particular) sit hour and hour, he’s and she’s, in turn; and I have seen the hen, when her rogue has staid too long, rattle at him, while he circles about her with sweeping wings, and displayed plumage, his head and breast of various dyes, ardently shining, peep, peep, peep; as much as to say, I beg your pardon, love — I was forced to go a great way off for my dinner. — Sirrah! I have thought she has said, in an unforgiving accent — Do your duty now — Sit close — Peep, peep, peep — I will, I will, I will — Away has she skimmed, and returned to relieve him — when she thought fit.

Even now that I have concluded this moving recapitulation, it seems as nothing; and the whole world, my dear is as a bit of dirt under my feet.

The pen is almost as pretty an implement in a woman's fingers, as a needle.

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

How can palsied age, which is but a terrifying object to youth, expect the indulgence, the love, of the young and gay, if it does not study to promote those pleasures which itself was fond of in youth? Enjoy innocently your season, girls, once said she, setting half a score of us into country dances. I watch for the failure of my memory; and shall never give it over for quite lost, till I forget what were my own innocent wishes and delights in the days of my youth.

He has travelled. But is not human nature the same in every country, allowing only for different customs? — Do not Love, hatred, anger, malice, all the passions in short, good or bad, shew themselves by like effects in the faces, hearts, and actions of the people of every country?

What the deuse do we men go to school for? If our wits were equal to women's, we might spare much time and pains in our education: for nature teaches your sex, what, in a long course of labour and study, ours can hardly attain to.

TRUE GENEROSITY is greatness of soul. It incites us to do more by a fellow-creature than can be strictly required of us. It obliges us to hasten to the relief of an object that wants relief; anticipating even such a one’s hope or expectation.

The tenderest and most generous minds, when harshly treated, become generally the most inflexible.

Mr. Hickman, indeed, speaks very handsomely of Mr. Belford. But he, poor man! has not much penetration. — If he had, he would hardly think so well of me as he does.

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:

They withdrew together; and the knight, not quitting hold of Mr. Reeves’s button, Ads-my-life, Sir, said he, I hope I am right. I love my Nephew as I love myself. I live but for him. He ever was dutiful to me his uncle. If that be Miss Byron who sits on the right-hand of your Lady, with the countenance of an angel, her eyes sparkling with good humour, and blooming as a May-morning, the business is done. I give my consent. Altho’ I heard not a word pass from her lips, I am sure she is all intelligence. My boy shall have her.

No-body, it seems, thinks of an husband for Miss Barnevelt. She is sneeringly spoken of rather as a young fellow, than as a woman; and who will one day look out for a wife for herself. One reason indeed, she every-where gives, for being satisfied with being a woman; which is, that she cannot be married to a WOMAN.