Henry Fielding: Man

Henry Fielding was English novelist and dramatist. Explore interesting quotes on man.

Henry Fielding: 140 quotes12 likes

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

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

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

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

“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)

“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.”

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