Friendship is the perfection of love, and superior to love; it is love purified, exalted, proved by experience and a consent of minds. Love, Madam, may, and love does, often stop short of friendship.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON, Letter to Hester Mulso, Sept. 30, 1751
Things we wish to be true are apt to gain too ready credit with us.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON, Pamela
The pleasures of the mighty are obtained by the tears of the poor.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON, Clarissa
Distresses, however heavy at the time, appear light, and even joyous, to the reflecting mind, when worthily overcome.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON, Pamela
My Master said, on another Occasion, that those who doubt most, always erred least.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON, Pamela
The World, thinking itself affronted by superior merit, takes delight to bring it down to its own level.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON, Sir Charles Grandison
The difference in the education of men and women, must give the former great advantages over the latter, even where geniuses are equal.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON, Pamela
What we look upon as our greatest unhappiness in a difficulty we are involved in, may possibly be the evil hastening to its crisis, and happy days may ensue.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON, Pamela
The person who is worthiest to live, is fittest to die.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON, Pamela
Vast is the field of Science ... the more a man knows, the more he will find he has to know.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON, Sir Charles Grandison
Virtue only is the true beauty.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON, Pamela
If a woman knows a man to be a libertine, yet will, without scruple, give him her company, he will think half the ceremony between them is over; and will probably only want an opportunity to make her repent of her confidence in him.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON, Pamela
Wicked words are the prelude to wicked deeds.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON, Pamela
The most innocent heart is generally the most credulous.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON, Pamela
O! what a Godlike Power is that of doing Good! — I envy the Rich and the Great for nothing else!
SAMUEL RICHARDSON, Pamela
Love gratified, is love satisfied — and love satisfied, is indifference begun.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON, Clarissa
The wife of a self-admirer must expect a very cold and negligent husband.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON, Pamela
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.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON, Sir Charles Grandison
People of little understanding are most apt to be angry when their sense is called into question.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON, Clarissa
A feeling heart is a blessing that no one, who has it, would be without; and it is a moral security of innocence; since the heart that is able to partake of the distress of another, cannot wilfully give it.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON, Sir Charles Grandison
The readiness with which women are apt to forgive the men who have deceived other women; and that inconsiderate notion of too many of them that a reformed rake makes the best husband, are great encouragements to vile men to continue their profligacy.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON, Pamela
Women are so much in love with compliments that rather than want them, they will compliment one another, yet mean no more by it than the men do.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON, Sir Charles Grandison
I know not my own heart if it be not absolutely free.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON, Clarissa
I am forced, as I have often said, to try to make myself laugh, that I may not cry: for one or other I must do.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON, Clarissa
The mind can be but full. It will be as much filled with a small disagreeable occurrence, having no other, as with a large one.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON, Sir Charles Grandison
Those who have least to do are generally the most busy people in the world.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON, Sir Charles Grandison
