Samuel Richardson Quotes

Truth is truth, my dear!

Rakish men make not either good husbands, or good fathers; nor yet good brothers. — But, no wonder! The narrow-hearted creatures centre all their delight in themselves.

We have all our faults. God knows what he will pardon, and what he will punish. His pardon, however, in a great measure depends upon yourself. You have health and time, to all appearance, before you: Your future life may be a life of penitence. I am no divine, madam; I would not be thought to preach to you: But you have now a prospect opened of future happiness, thro’ your mutual misunderstandings, that you never otherwise might have had. And let me make an observation to you; That where hate or dislike have once taken place of liking, the first separation, in such a case as this, is always the best. Affection or esteem between man and woman, once forfeited, hardly ever is recovered.

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.

Mr. Somner is a young gentleman lately married; very affected, and very opinionated. I told Mrs. Reeves, after he was gone, that I believed he was a dear Lover of his person; and she owned he was. Yet had he no great reason for it.

Have I not taught you, that marriage is a duty, whenever it can be enter’d into with prudence? What a mean, what a selfish mind must that person have, whether man or woman, who can resolve against entering into the state, because it has its cares, its fatigues, its inconveniencies!

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.

Dear creature, be good. Dear creature, make Lord G. happy. I am like a builder, madam. I am digging for a foundation. There is a good deal of rubbishy humours to remove; a little swampiness of soil: And I am only removing it, and digging deeper, to make my foundation sure. Take care, take care, niece: You may dig too deep. There may be springs: You may open, and never be able to stop them, till they have sapped your foundation. Take care, niece.

He pulled the other hand from her eye. The handkerchief dropt: He might see that it was wet and heavy with her tears. Fain would she have turn’d her blubber’d eye from him. He held both her hands, and burst out into a laugh

It is true, my Lucy, that we young women are too apt to be pleased with the admiration pretended for us by the other Sex. But I have always endeavour’d to keep down any foolish pride of this sort, by such considerations as these: That flattery is the vice of men: That they seek to raise us, in order to lower us, and in the end to exalt themselves on the ruins of the pride they either hope to find or inspire:

I have lived to a great age: Yet to look backward to the time of my youth, when I was not a stranger to the hopes and fears that now agitate you, what a short space does it seem to be!

Women must not encourage Fops and Fools. They must encourage Men of Sense only. And it is well said. But what will they do, if their lot be cast only among Foplings? If the Men of Sense do not offer themselves? And pray, may I not ask, if the taste of the age, among the men, is not Dress, Equipage, and Foppery? Is the cultivation of the mind any part of their study? The men, in short, are sunk, my dear; and the women but barely swim.

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.

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.

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.