259 Quotes by Henry Fielding

No one hath seen beauty in its highest lustre who hath never seen it in distress.

The characteristic of coquettes is affectation governed by whim.

To see a Woman you love in Distress; to be unable to relieve her, and at the same Time to reflect that you have brought her into this Situation, is, perhaps, a Curse of which no Imagination can represent the Horrors to those who have not felt it.

To say the Truth, I have often concluded, that the honest Part of Mankind would be much too hard for the knavish, if they could bring themselves to incur the Guilt, or thought it worth their while to take the Trouble.

In Truth, none seem to have any Title to assert Human Nature to be necessarily and universally evil, but those whose own Minds afford them one Instance of this natural Depravity.

Reader, I think proper, before we proceed any further together, to acquaint thee that I intend to digress, through this whole history, as often as I see occasion, of which I am myself a better judge than any pitiful critic whatever.

The prudence of the best heads is often defeated by tenderness of the best hearts.

Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.

Now in reality, the world has paid too great a compliment to critics, and has imagined them to be men of much greater profundity than they really are.