The temperately revengeful have leisure to weigh the merits of the cause, and thereby either to smother their secret resentments, or to seek adequate reparations for the damages they have sustained.
RICHARD STEELE, The Guardian, August 8, 1713
It may be remarked in general, that the laugh of men of wit is for the most part but a feint, constrained kind of half-laugh, as such persons are never without some diffidence about them; but that of fools is the most honest, natural, open laugh in the world.
RICHARD STEELE, The Guardian, Apr. 14, 1713
I know no manner of speaking so offensive as that of giving praise, and closing it with an exception.
RICHARD STEELE, The Tatler, November 10, 1709
The painter is, as to the execution of his work, a mechanic; but as to his conception, his spirit, and design, he is hardly below even the poet in liberal art.
RICHARD STEELE, The Guardian, March 12, 1713
A modest person seldom fails to gain the goodwill of those he converses with, because nobody envies a man who does not appear to be pleased with himself.
RICHARD STEELE, The Guardian, April 8, 1713
Of all the affections which attend human life, the love of glory is the most ardent. According as this is cultivated in princes, it produces the greatest good or the greatest evil. Where sovereigns have it by impressions received from education only, it creates an ambitious rather than a noble mind: where it is the natural bent of the prince's inclination, it prompts him to the pursuit of things truly glorious.
RICHARD STEELE, The Spectator, August 9, 1711
A piece of news loses its flavor when it hath been an hour in the air. I love, if I may so speak, to have it fresh from the tree, and to convey it to my friends before it is faded.
RICHARD STEELE, The Spectator, No. 625
Though men may impose upon themselves what they please by their corrupt imaginations, truth will ever keep its station; and as glory is nothing else but the shadow of virtue, it will certainly disappear at the departure of virtue.
RICHARD STEELE, The Spectator, August 9, 1711
Modesty never rages, never murmurs, never pouts; when it is ill-treated, it pines, it beseeches, it languishes.
RICHARD STEELE, The Tatler, August 29, 1710
There is but one thing necessary to keep the possession of true glory, which is to perserve the virtue by which it was acquired.
RICHARD STEELE, The Spectator, September 17, 1711
