Quotes from Samuel Richardson

They reflected a broader

There is a kind of magnetism in goodness. Bad people will indeed find out bad people, and confederate with them, in order to keep one another in countenance; but they are bound together by a rope of sand; while trust, confidence, love, sympathy, and a reciprocation of beneficent actions, twist a cord which ties good men to good men, and cannot be easily broken.

Explain yourself to me upon this compromise. If I can smooth the way between you — Yet I despair that any-thing will do but your conversion. They love your soul; they think they love it better than you do yourself. Is there not a merit in them, which you cannot boast in return?

I need not tell you that Mr. Greville and Mr. Fenwick attended us to our first baiting; and had a genteel dinner ready provided for us: The gentlemen will tell you this, and all particulars. They both renewed their menaces of following me to London, if I stay'd above one month.

He stood suspended till I had speaking; and then, bowing, sat down again; but, as Mr. Reeves told me afterwards, he whispered a great oath in his ear, and declared, that he beheld with transport his future wife; and cursed himself if he would ever have another; vowing, in the same whisper, that were a thousand men to stand in his way, he would not scruple any means to remove them.

Chastity is the crown and glory of a woman. The most profligate of men love modesty in the sex, at the very time they are forming plots to destroy it in a particular object.

And is it a crime to acknowlege, that they are so well disposed to a worthy object? A worthy object, I repeat; for that is what will warrant the open heart. What a littleness is there in the custom that compels us to be insincere? And suppose we do not succeed with a first object, shall we cheat a future Lover with the notion that he was the first?

And this is LOVE, is it? that puts an honest girl upon approving of such tricks? — Begone, Love! I  banish thee if thou wouldst corrupt the simplicity of that heart, which was taught to glory in truth.

And added, that as nervous disorders were more frequent in England, than in any country in the world, he was willing to hope, that the English physicians were more skilful than those of any other country in the management of persons afflicted with such maladies:

My dearest Clementina, said I, you have shewn so glorious a magnanimity, that it would be injuring you, to suppose you are not equal to every branch of duty. God forbid that you should be called to sustain an unreasonable trial — In a reasonable one, you must be victorious.

do not easily dislike, Sir; but then I do not easily like. And I never will marry any man, to whom I cannot be more than indifferent.

Masquerades, I have generally heard said, were more silly than wicked: But they are now, I am convinced, the most profligate of all diversions. Almost distracted, cousin! — You may well be so: We shall all be quite distracted — Dear, dear creature! What may she not have suffered by this time?

I never saw the approaches of death in a grown person before; and was extremely shocked. Death, to one in health, is a very terrible thing. We pity the person for what she suffers: and we pity ourselves for what we must some time hence in like sort suffer; and so are doubly affected.

Unhappy, indeed, must the woman be, who has drawn upon her the helpless pity of the man she loves!

And yet all I have said is but  from common reading. And, let me ask, why, because we know but little, we are to be supposed to know nothing?

Yet it was an hard struggle, I own: In the suspense I am in; a very hard struggle. But tho' wishes will play about my heart, that I knew such of the contents as it might concern me to know; yet I am infinitely better pleased that I yielded not to the temptation, than I should have been, if I had.

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.

I have just received my uncle's Letter. And, after his charge upon me of Vanity and Pride, will my parade, as above, stand me in any stead? — I must trust to it. Only one word to my dear and everhonoured uncle — Don't you, Sir, impute to me a belief of the truth of those extravagant compliments made by men professing Love to me; and I will not wish you to think me one bit the wiser, the handsomer, the better for them, than I was before.

What merit does her patience add to her other merits! How has her calamity endeared her to me! If ever I shall be heavily afflicted, God give me her amiable, her almost meritorious patience in sufferings!

Well! What news? What news? — Good, I hope, said the knight, with spread hands — Ah my poor boy! Thus alamort! Surely, madam — There he stopt, and looked wistfully at me; then at my cousins — Mr. Reeves, Mrs. Reeves, speak a good word for my boy.

Married people should not be quick to hear what is said by either when in ill humor.

Some children act as if they thought their parents had nothing to do, but to see them established in the world and then quit it.

Those who have least to do are generally the most busy people in the world.

Men generally are afraid of a wife who has more understanding than themselves.