Samuel Richardson

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

Those who can least bear a jest upon themselves, will be most diverted with one passed on others.

All human excellence is but comparative. There may be persons who excel us, as much as we fancy we excel the meanest.

A man may keep a woman, but not his estate.

There hardly can be a greater difference between any two men, than there too often is, between the same man, a lover and a husband.

Calamity is the test of integrity.

People of little understanding are most apt to be angry when their sense is called into question.

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

Where words are restrained, the eyes often talk a great deal.

It is better to be thought perverse than insincere.

Women do not often fall in love with philosophers.

Vast is the field of Science. The more a man knows, the more he will find he has to know.

Smatterers in learning are the most opinionated.

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

O! what a Godlike Power is that of doing Good! I envy the Rich and the Great for nothing else!

For the human mind is seldom at stay: If you do not grow better, you will most undoubtedly grow worse.

Those we dislike can do nothing to please us.

Women love to be called cruel, even when they are kindest.

A good man, though he will value his own countrymen, yet will think as highly of the worthy men of every nation under the sun.

Humility is a grace that shines in a high condition but cannot, equally, in a low one because a person in the latter is already, perhaps, too much humbled.