Richard Steele Quotes

Fire and swords are slow engines of destruction, compared to the tongue of a Gossip.

People spend their lives in the service of their passions instead of employing their passions in the service of their lives.

There is hardly that person to be found who is not more concerned for the reputation of wit and sense, than honesty and virtue.

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

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

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

A woman seldom writes her mind but in her postscript.

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

To be exempt from the Passions with which others are tormented, is the only pleasing Solitude.

That man never grows old who keeps a child in his heart.

Whoever would be wise should read the Proverbs; whoever would be holy should read the Psalms.

The person, whom you favored with a loan, if he be a good man, will think himself in your debt after he has paid you.

Nothing can atone for the lack of modesty; without which beauty is ungraceful and wit detestable.

There are so few who can grow old with a good grace.

It is an impertinent and unreasonable fault in conversation for one man to take up all the discourse.

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

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

I love to consider an Infidel, whether distinguished by the title of deist, atheist, or free-thinker.

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

The world will never be in any manner of order or tranquility until men are firmly convinced that conscience, honor and credit are all in one interest

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

It is an endless and frivolous Pursuit to act by any other Rule than the Care of satisfying our own Minds in what we do.

Vanity makes people ridiculous, pride odious, and ambition terrible.

A Woman is naturally more helpless than the other Sex; and a Man of Honour and Sense should have this in his View in all Manner of Commerce with her.

A lie is troublesome, and sets a man's invention upon the rack, and one trick needs a great many more to make it good.

Praise from an enemy is the most pleasing of all commendations.

When a man is not disposed to hear music, there is not a more disagreeable sound in harmony than that of the violin.

I was going home two hours ago, but was met by Mr. Griffith, who has kept me ever since ... I will come within a pint of wine.

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.

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

Among all the diseases of the mind there is not one more epidemical or more pernicious than the love of flattery.

Since we cannot promise our selves constant health, let us endeavour at such temper as may be our best support in the decay of it.

He that has sense knows that learning is not knowledge, but rather the art of using it.

The survivorship of a worthy man in his son is a pleasure scarce inferior to the hopes of the continuance of his own life.

Modesty never rages, never murmurs, never pouts; when it is ill-treated, it pines, it beseeches, it languishes.

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

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

Whether a pretty woman grants or withholds her favors, she always likes to be asked for them.

Pleasure, when it is a man's chief purpose, disappoints itself; and the constant application to it palls the faculty of enjoying it.

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

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

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

The world is grown so full of dissimulation and compliment, that men's words are hardly any signification of their thoughts.

The insupportable labor of doing nothing.

Reading is to the mind what exercising is to the body.

Simplicity of all things is the hardest to be copy.

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

Readings is to the mind what exercice is to the body.

Pride destroys all symmetry and grace, and affectation is a more terrible enemy to fine faces than the small-pox.

The fool within himself is the object of pity, until he is flattered.

I have often lamented that we cannot close our ears with as much ease as which we close our eyes.

I know of no manner of speaking so offensive as that of giving praise, and closing it with an exception.

There is no Pleasure like that of receiving Praise from the Praiseworthy.

No woman is capable of being beautiful who is not incapable of being false.