01c. 1730 ADThe woman and the soldier who do not defend the first pass will never defend the last.Henry Fielding / quote ↗
02c. 1730 ADThere are those who never reason on what they should do, but what they have done; as if Reason had her eyes behind, and could only see backwards.Henry Fielding / quote ↗
03c. 1730 ADThere is an insolence which none but those who deserve some contempt themselves can bestow, and those only who deserve no contempt can bear.Henry Fielding / quote ↗
05c. 1730 ADWe should not be too hasty in bestowing either our praise or censure on mankind, since we shall often find such a mixture of good and evil in the same character, that it may require a very accurate judgment and a very elaborate inquiry to determine on which side the balance turns.Henry Fielding / quote ↗
06c. 1730 ADWhen I'm not thanked at all, I'm thank'd enough; / I've done my duty, and I've done no more.Henry Fielding / quote ↗
08c. 1730 ADWithout adversity a man hardly knows whether he is honest or not.Henry Fielding / quote ↗
09c. 1730 ADThere cannot be a more glorious object in creation than a human being, replete with benevolence, meditating in what manner he might render himself most acceptable to his Creator by doing most good to his creatures.Henry Fielding / quote ↗
10c. 1730 ADThere is not in human nature a more odious disposition than a proneness to contempt, which is a mixture of pride and ill-nature. Nor is there any which more certainly denotes a bad mind; for in a good and benign temper there can be no room for this sensation.Henry Fielding / quote ↗
11c. 1730 ADConsidering the unforeseen events of this world, we should be taught that no human condition should inspire men with absolute despair.Henry Fielding / quote ↗
12c. 1730 ADA tender-hearted and compassionate disposition, which inclines men to pity and feel the misfortunes of others, and which is even for its own sake incapable of involving any man in ruin and misery, is of all tempers of mind the most amiable; and, though it seldom receives much honor, is worthy of the highest.Henry Fielding / quote ↗
13c. 1730 ADIn affairs of this world men are saved not by faith but by the want of it.Henry Fielding / quote ↗
14c. 1730 ADFashion is the great governor of this world. It presides not only in matters of dress and amusement, but in law, physic, politics, religion, and all other things of the gravest kind. Indeed, the wisest of men would be puzzled to give any better reason why particular forms in all these have been at certain times universally received, and at other times universally rejected, than that they were in or out of fashion.Henry Fielding / quote ↗
15c. 1730 ADSuppose we put a tax upon learning? Learning, it is true, is a useless commodity, but I think we had better lay it on ignorance; for learning being the property but of a very few, and those poor ones too, I am afraid we can get little among them; whereas ignorance will take in most of the great fortunes in the kingdom.Henry Fielding / quote ↗
16c. 1730 ADNecessity is a bad recommendation to favors of any kind, which as seldom fall to those who really want them, as to those who really deserve them.Henry Fielding / quote ↗
17c. 1730 ADAn author ought to consider himself, not as a gentleman who gives a private or eleemosynary treat, but rather as one who keeps a public ordinary, at which all persons are welcome for their money.Henry Fielding / quote ↗
18c. 1730 ADWhy, then,' answered the squire, 'I am very sorry you have given him so much learning; for, if he cannot get his living by that, it will rather spoil him for anything else; and your other son, who can hardly write his name, will do more at ploughing and sowing, and is in a better condition, than he.' And indeed so it proved; for the poor lad, not finding friends to maintain him in his learning, as he had expected, and being unwilling to work, fell to drinking, though he was a very sober lad before; and in a short time, partly with grief, and partly with good liquor, fell into a consumption, and died.Henry Fielding / quote ↗
19c. 1730 ADFor I hope my Friends will pardon me, when I declare, I know none of them without a Fault; and I should be sorry if I could imagine, I had any Friend who could not see mine. Forgiveness, of this Kind, we give and demand in Turn.Henry Fielding / quote ↗
20c. 1730 AD...the pleasures of the world are chiefly folly, and the business of it mostly knavery, and both nothing better than vanity; the men of pleasure tearing one another to pieces from the emulation of spending money, and the men of business from envy in getting it.Henry Fielding / quote ↗
21c. 1730 ADNobody scarce doth any good, yet they all agree in praising those who do. Indeed, it is strange that all men should consent in commending goodness, and no man endeavour to deserve that commendation; whilst, on the contrary, all rail at wickedness, and all are as eager to be what they abuse.Henry Fielding / quote ↗
22c. 1730 ADI have often wondered, Sir, [. . .] to observe so few Instances of Charity among Mankind; for tho' the Goodness of a Man's Heart did not incline him to relieve the Distresses of his Fellow-Creatures, methinks the Desire of Honour should move him to it. What inspires a Man to build fine Houses, to purchase fine Furniture, Pictures, Clothes, and other things at a great Expence, but an Ambition to be respected more than other People? Now would not one great Act of Charity, one Instance of redeeming a poor Family from all the Miseries of Poverty, restoring an unfortunate Tradesman by a Sum of Money to the means of procuring a Livelihood by his Industry, discharging an undone Debtor from his Debts or a Goal, or any such Example of Goodness, create a Man more Honour and Respect than he could acquire by the finest House, Furniture, Pictures or Clothes that were ever beheld? For not only the Object himself who was thus relieved, but all who heard the Name of such a Person must, I imagine, reverence him infinitely more than the Possessor of all those other things: which when we so admire, we rather praise the Builder, the Workman, the Painter, the Laceman, the Taylor, and the rest, by whose Ingenuity they are produced, than the Person who by his Money makes them his own.Henry Fielding / quote ↗
23c. 1730 AD...but doth not the person who expends vast sums in the furniture of his house or the ornaments of his person, who consumes much time and employs great pains in dressing himself, or who thinks himself paid for self-denial, labour, or even villany, by a title or a ribbon, sacrifice as much to vanity as the poor wit who is desirous to read you his poem or his play?Henry Fielding / quote ↗
24c. 1730 ADIt is not enough that your designs, nay that your actions, are intrinsically good, you must take care they shall appear so.Henry Fielding / quote ↗
