Henry Fielding Quotes (70 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

Don Quixote in England (1731), Act I, scene vi http://books.google.com/books?id=8_VbAAAAQAAJ&q=%22Money+is+the+fruit+of+evil+as+often+as+the+root+of+it%22&pg=PA13#v=onepage

“No one hath seen beauty in its highest lustre who hath never seen it in distress.”

Henry Fielding book The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

Source: Tom Jones

“For I hope my Friends will pardon me, when I declare, I know none of them without a Fault; and I should be sorry if I could imagine, I had any Friend who could not see mine. Forgiveness, of this Kind, we give and demand in Turn.”

Henry Fielding book The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

Source: The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

Henry Fielding Quotes

“We are as liable to be corrupted by books as we are by companions.”

Henry Fielding

“A crime, which, though perhaps not considered by law as the highest, is in truth and in fact, the blackest sin, which can contaminate the hands, or pollute the soul of man.”

Henry Fielding

Fielding, Henry; ed. by William Ernest Henley. 1903. The Complete Works of Henry Fielding, Esq: Miscellaneous writings. W. Heinemann. p. 162

“Guilt has very quick ears to an accusation.”

Henry Fielding book Amelia

Book III, ch. 11
Amelia (1751)

“We must eat to live and live to eat.”

Henry Fielding

Act III, sc. iii
The Miser (1733)

“I have found it; I have discovered the cause of all the misfortunes which befell him. A public school, Joseph, was the cause of all the calamaties which he afterwards suffered. Public schools are the nurseries of all vice and immorality.”

Henry Fielding book Joseph Andrews

Abraham Adams, speaking of his host, Wilson.
Book III, Ch. 5
Joseph Andrews (1742)

“To whom nothing is given, of him can nothing be required.”

Henry Fielding book Joseph Andrews

Book II, Ch. 8
Joseph Andrews (1742)

“He was, indeed, in a condition, in which, if reason had interposed, though only to advise, she might have received the answer which one Cleostratus gave many years ago to a silly fellow, who asked him, if he was not ashamed to be drunk? "Are not you," said Cleostratus, "ashamed to admonish a drunken man?" — To say the truth, in a court of justice drunkenness must not be an excuse, yet in a court of conscience it is greatly so.”

Henry Fielding

Book V, Ch. 10
The History of Tom Jones (1749)

“Oh, the roast beef of England,
And old England's roast beef!”

Henry Fielding

The Grub Street Opera (1731), Act iii, scene 2; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Oons, sir! do you say that I am drunk? I say, sir, that I am as sober as a judge.”

Henry Fielding

Don Quixote in England (1731), Act III, scene xiv

“One fool at least in every married couple.”

Henry Fielding book Amelia

Book IX, ch. 4
Amelia (1751)

“This story will not go down.”

Henry Fielding

Tumble-down Dick; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Can any man have a higher notion of the rule of right and the eternal fitness of things?”

Henry Fielding

Book IV, Ch. 4
The History of Tom Jones (1749)

“Custom may lead a man into many errors; but it justifies none.”

Henry Fielding

“The same animal which hath the honour to have some part of his flesh eaten at the table of a duke, may perhaps be degraded in another part, and some of his limbs gibbeted, as it were, in the vilest stall in town.”

Henry Fielding

Book I, Chapter 1
The History of Tom Jones (1749)

“When children are doing nothing, they are doing mischief.”

Henry Fielding

Book XV, Ch. 2
The History of Tom Jones (1749)

“…the excellence of the mental entertainment consists less in the subject than in the author's skill in well dressing it up.”

Henry Fielding

Book I, Chapter 1
The History of Tom Jones (1749)

“Depend on me; never fear your enemies. I'll warrant we make more noise than they.”

Henry Fielding

Eurydice Hissed : or A Word to the Wise (1736) in The Works of Henry Fielding (1775) in Twelve Volumes, Vol. IV, p. 222

“Thy modesty's a candle to thy merit.”

Henry Fielding

Act I, sc. iii
Tom Thumb the Great (1730)

“He in a few minutes ravished this fair creature, or at least would have ravished her, if she had not, by a timely compliance, prevented him.”

Henry Fielding

Jonathan Wild (1743, rev. 1754), Book III, ch. 7

“There is not in the universe a more ridiculous, nor more contemptible animal, than a proud clergyman.”

Henry Fielding book Amelia

Book IX, Ch. 10
Amelia (1751)

“When widows exclaim loudly against second marriages, I would always lay a wager that the man, if not the wedding day, is absolutely fixed on.”

Henry Fielding book Amelia

Book VI, Ch. 8
Amelia (1751)

“Lo, when two dogs are fighting in the streets,
With a third dog one of the two dogs meets;
With angry teeth he bites him to the bone,
And this dog smarts for what that dog has done.”

Henry Fielding

Act I, sc. vi
Tom Thumb the Great (1730)

“His designs were strictly honorable, as the phrase is; that is, to rob a lady of her fortune by way of marriage.”

Henry Fielding

Book XI, Ch. 4
The History of Tom Jones (1749)

“Sir, money, money, the most charming of all things; money, which will say more in one moment than the most elegant lover can in years. Perhaps you will say a man is not young; I answer he is rich. He is not genteel, handsome, witty, brave, good-humoured, but he is rich, rich, rich, rich, rich — that one word contradicts everything you can say against him.”

Henry Fielding

Act III, sc. vii
The Miser (1733)

“For it is very hard, my lord," said a convicted felon at the bar to the late excellent judge Burnet, "to hang a poor man for stealing a horse." "You are not to be hanged sir," answered my ever-honored and beloved friend, "for stealing a horse, but you are to be hanged that horses may not be stolen.”

Henry Fielding book The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon

The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon (1754), Introduction

“Covent Garden Journal (11 January 1752)”
Illustrious predecessors.

Henry Fielding

“Thwackum was for doing justice, and leaving mercy to heaven.”

Henry Fielding

Book III, Ch. 10
The History of Tom Jones (1749)

“Penny saved is a penny got.”

Henry Fielding

Act III, sc. xii
The Miser (1733)

“To speak a bold truth, I am, after much mature deliberation, inclined to suspect that the public voice hath, in all ages, done much injustice to Fortune, and hath convicted her of many facts in which she had not the least concern.”

Henry Fielding book Amelia

Book I, Ch. 1
Amelia (1751)

“Distinction without a difference.”

Henry Fielding

Book VI, Ch. 13
The History of Tom Jones (1749)

“Much may be said on both sides.”

Henry Fielding

Spectator, No. 122.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Hairbreadth missings of happiness look like the insults of Fortune.”

Henry Fielding

Book XIII, Ch. 2
The History of Tom Jones (1749)

“Life may as properly be called an art as any other.”

Henry Fielding book Amelia

Book I, Ch. 1
Amelia (1751)

“To sun myself in Huncamunca's eyes.”

Henry Fielding

Act I, sc. iii
Tom Thumb the Great (1730)

“Reader, I think proper, before we proceed any farther together, to acquaint thee that I intend to digress, through this whole history, as often as I see occasion, of which I am myself a better judge than any pitiful critic…”

Henry Fielding

Book I, Chapter 2
The History of Tom Jones (1749)

“The dusky night rides down the sky,
And ushers in the morn;
The hounds all join in glorious cry,
The huntsman winds his horn,
And a-hunting we will go.”

Henry Fielding

A-Hunting We Will Go (1734), st. 1

“It is a trite but true observation, that examples work more forcibly on the mind than precepts.”

Henry Fielding book Joseph Andrews

Book I, Ch. 1
Joseph Andrews (1742)

“It hath been often said, that it is not death, but dying which is terrible.”

Henry Fielding book Amelia

Book III, Ch. 4
Amelia (1751)

“When I'm not thanked at all, I'm thanked enough;
I've done my duty, and I've done no more.”

Henry Fielding

Source: Tom Thumb the Great (1730), Act I, sc. iii

“A lover, when he is admitted to cards, ought to be solemnly silent, and observe the motions of his mistress. He must laugh when she laughs, sigh when she sighs. In short, he should be the shadow of her mind. A lady, in the presence of her lover, should never want a looking-glass; as a beau, in the presence of his looking-glass, never wants a mistress.”

Henry Fielding Love in Several Masques

Act II, sc. xi
Love in Several Masques (1728)

“Petition me no petitions, sir, to-day;
Let other hours be set apart for business.
Today it is our pleasure to be drunk;
And this our queen shall be as drunk as we.”

Henry Fielding

Act I, sc. ii
Tom Thumb the Great (1730)

“Enough is equal to a feast.”

Henry Fielding

The Covent Garden Tragedy (1732), Act V, scene 1

“Dancing begets warmth, which is the parent of wantonness. It is, Sir, the great grandfather of cuckoldom.”

Henry Fielding Love in Several Masques

Act III, sc. vii
Love in Several Masques (1728)

“Every physician almost hath his favorite disease.”

Henry Fielding

Book II, Ch. 9
The History of Tom Jones (1749)

“These are called the pious frauds of friendship.”

Henry Fielding book Amelia

Book VI, Ch. 6
Amelia (1751)

“…for nothing can be more reasonable, than that slaves and flatterers should exact the same taxes on all below them, which they themselves pay to all above them.”

Henry Fielding

Book I, Chapter 6
The History of Tom Jones (1749)

“Amiable weakness.”

Henry Fielding

Book X, Chapter 8
The History of Tom Jones (1749)

“The dignity of history.”

Henry Fielding

Book XI, Chapter 2
The History of Tom Jones (1749)

“Republic of letters.”

Henry Fielding

Book XIV, Chapter 1
The History of Tom Jones (1749)

“For so extravagant was the affection of that fond parent, that, provided his child would but consent to be miserable with the husband he chose, he cared not at what price he purchased him.”

Henry Fielding

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