Quotes from Samuel Richardson

A good man will honor him who lives up to his religious profession, whatever it be.

Those who respect age, deserve to live to be old, and to be respected themselves.

The English, the plain English, of the politest address of a gentleman to a lady is, I am now, dear Madam, your humble servant: Pray be so good as to let me be your Lord and Master.

Prejudices in disfavor of a person fix deeper, and are much more difficult to be removed, than prejudices in favor.

Every scholar, I presume, is not, necessarily, a man of sense.

Whenever we approve, we can find a hundred good reasons to justify our approbation. Whenever we dislike, we can find a thousand to justify our dislike.

There is but one pride pardonable; that of being above doing a base or dishonorable action.

The pleasures of the mighty are obtained by the tears of the poor.

Nothing dries sooner than tears.

Spiritual pride is the most dangerous and the most arrogant of all sorts of pride.

A widow's refusal of a lover is seldom so explicit as to exclude hope.

Men will bear many things from a kept mistress, which they would not bear from a wife.

Necessity may well be called the mother of invention but calamity is the test of integrity.

The companion of an evening, and the companion for life, require very different qualifications.

There cannot be any great happiness in the married life except each in turn give up his or her own humors and lesser inclinations.

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

You say that if a woman resolves not to marry till she finds herself addressed to by a man of strict virtue, she must be for ever single. If this be true, what wicked creatures are men! What a dreadful abuse of passions, given them for the noblest purposes, are they guilty of!

What poor wretches are we, Harriet, men as well as women! We pray for long life; and what is the issue of our prayers, but leave to outlive our teeth and our friends, to stand in the way of our elbowing relations, and to change our swan-skins for skins of buff; which nevertheless will keep out neither cold nor infirmity?

And pray, said I, walking on, how came I to be his Property? What Right has he in me, but such as a Thief may plead to stolen Goods?

That she thought me the prettiest creature she ever beheld. — Creature was her word — We are all creatures, 'tis true: But I think I never was more displeased with the sound of the word Creature, than I was from Lady Anne.

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.

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

Were it but to avoid an interview with a father who seem'd to have been too much used to womens tears to be moved by them;

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: