For the human mind is seldom at stay: If you do not grow better, you will most undoubtedly grow worse.
– Samuel Richardson
Too liberal self-accusations are generally but so many traps for acquittal with applause.
– Samuel Richardson
Good men must be affectionate men.
– Samuel Richardson
Women love to be called cruel, even when they are kindest.
– Samuel Richardson
Women do not often fall in love with philosophers.
– Samuel Richardson
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
Women are always most observed when they seem themselves least to observe, or to lay out for observation.
– Samuel Richardson
Where words are restrained, the eyes often talk a great deal.
– Samuel Richardson
Vast is the field of Science. The more a man knows, the more he will find he has to know.
– Samuel Richardson
There is a pride, a self-love, in human minds that will seldom be kept so low as to make men and women humbler than they ought to be.
– Samuel Richardson
The plays and sports of children are as salutary to them as labor and work are to grown persons.
– Samuel Richardson
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
The Cause of Women is generally the Cause of Virtue.
– Samuel Richardson
Smatterers in learning are the most opinionated.
– Samuel Richardson
Quantity in food is more to be regarded than quality. A full meal is a great enemy both to study and industry.
– Samuel Richardson
O! what a Godlike Power is that of doing Good! I envy the Rich and the Great for nothing else!
– Samuel Richardson
Nothing in human nature is so God-like as the disposition to do good to our fellow-creatures.
– Samuel Richardson
Men will bear many things from a kept mistress, which they would not bear from a wife.
– Samuel Richardson
Married people should not be quick to hear what is said by either when in ill humor.
– Samuel Richardson
Marriage is the highest state of friendship. If happy, it lessens our cares by dividing them, at the same time that it doubles our pleasures by mutual participation.
– Samuel Richardson
Love before marriage is absolutely necessary.
– Samuel Richardson
Let a man do what he will by a single woman, the world is encouragingly apt to think Marriage a sufficient amends.
– Samuel Richardson
If the education and studies of children were suited to their inclinations and capacities, many would be made useful members of society that otherwise would make no figure in it.
– Samuel Richardson
Hope is the cordial that keeps life from stagnating.
– Samuel Richardson
From sixteen to twenty, all women, kept in humor by their hopes and by their attractions, appear to be good-natured.
– Samuel Richardson
Every one, more or less, loves Power, yet those who most wish for it are seldom the fittest to be trusted with it.
– Samuel Richardson
As a child is indulged or checked in its early follies, a ground is generally laid for the happiness or misery of the future man.
– Samuel Richardson
A widow's refusal of a lover is seldom so explicit as to exclude hope.