Richard Steele Quotes - Page 2

When a man has no design but to speak plain truth, he may say a great deal in a very narrow compass.

It is a wonderful thing that so many, and they not reckoned absurd, shall entertain those with whom they converse by giving them the history of their pains and aches and imagine such narrations their quota of conversation.

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.

Though her mien carries much more invitation than command, to behold her is an immediate check to loose behaviour; to love her was a liberal education.

A man advanced in years that thinks fit to look back on his former life, and calls that only life which was passed with satisfaction and enjoyment, excluding all parts which were not pleasant to him, will find himself very young, if not in infancy.

It has been a sort of maxim, that the greatest art is to conceal art; but I know not how, among some people we meet with, their greatest cunning is to appear cunning.

Zeal for the public good is the characteristic of a man of honor and a gentleman, and must take the place of pleasures, profits and all other private gratifications.

Compassion does not only refine and civilize human nature, but has something in it more pleasing and agreeable, than what can be met with in such an indolent happiness, such an indifference to mankind, as that in which the stoics placed their wisdom. As love is the most delightful passion, pity is nothing else but love softened by a degree of sorrow: In short, it is a kind of pleasing anguish, anguish as well as generous sympathy, that knits mankind together, and blends them in the same common lot.

Will. Honeycomb calls these over-offended ladies the outrageously virtuous.

Since our persons are not of our own making, when they are such as appear defective or uncomely, it is, methinks, an honest and laudable fortitude to dare to be ugly.

Age in a virtuous person, of either sex, carries in it an authority which makes it preferable to all the pleasures of youth.

Many take pleasure in spreading abroad the weakness of an exalted character.

You see, among men who are honored with the common appellation ogentleman, many contradictions to that character.

A woman seldom writes her mind but in her postscript

Though very troublesome to others, anger is most so to him that has it.

The married state, with and without the affection suitable to it, is the completest image of heaven and hell we are capable of receiving in this life.

A little in drink, but at all times your faithful husband.

One common calamity makes men extremely affect each other, though they differ in every other particular

I cannot think of any character below the flatterer, except he who envies him

I look upon it as a Point of Morality, to be obliged by those who endeavour to oblige me

A favor well bestowed is almost as great an honor to him who confers it as to him who receives it.

A man cannot have an idea of perfection in another, which he was never sensible of in himself.

It is to beoted that when any part of this paper appears dull there is a design in it.

There can hardly, I believe, be imagined a more desirable pleasure than that of praise unmixed with any possibility of flattery.

Of all the affections which attend human life, the love of glory is the most ardent.