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Samuel Richardson Quotes

Samuel Richardson was an English writer and printer. He is best known for his three epistolary novels: Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded , Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady and The History of Sir Charles Grandison . Richardson was an established printer and publisher for most of his life and printed almost 500 different works, including journals and magazines. He was also known to collaborate closely with the London bookseller Andrew Millar on several occasions.At a very early age, Richardson was apprenticed to a printer, whose daughter he eventually married. He lost his first wife along with their five sons, and eventually remarried. With his second wife, he had four daughters who reached adulthood, but no male heirs to continue running the printing business. While his print shop slowly ran down, he wrote his first novel at the age of 51 and immediately became one of the more popular and admired writers of his time.

Richardson knew leading figures in 18th-century England, including Samuel Johnson and Sarah Fielding. He was also close friends with the eminent physician and behmenist George Cheyne and with the theologian and writer William Law, whose books he printed. At the special request of William Law, Richardson printed various poems by John Byrom. In the London literary world, he was a rival of Henry Fielding, and the two responded to each other's literary styles in their own novels.

His name was on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, a list established by the Pope containing the names of books that Catholics were not allowed to read. Wikipedia  

✵ 19. August 1689 – 4. July 1761  •  Other names Сэмюэл Ричардсон, ساموئل ریچاردسون
Samuel Richardson photo

Works

The History of Sir Charles Grandison
Clarissa
Samuel Richardson
Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded
The History of Sir Charles Grandison
Clarissa
Samuel Richardson
Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded
Samuel Richardson: 21 quotes3 likes

Famous Samuel Richardson Quotes

“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

“Tired of myself longing for what I have not”

Samuel Richardson book Clarissa

Source: Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady

“The person who will bear much shall have much to bear, all the world through.”

Samuel Richardson book Clarissa

Vol. 1, p. 44; Letter 10.
Clarissa (1747–1748)

“There hardly can be a greater difference between any two men, than there too often is, between the same man, a lover and a husband.”

Samuel Richardson book The History of Sir Charles Grandison

Vol. 4, letter 17.
Sir Charles Grandison (1753–1754)

“I know not my own heart if it be not absolutely free.”

Samuel Richardson book Clarissa

Source: Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady

Samuel Richardson Quotes

“A feeling heart is a blessing that no one, who has it, would be without; and it is a moral security of innocence; since the heart that is able to partake of the distress of another, cannot wilfully give it.”

Samuel Richardson book The History of Sir Charles Grandison

Vol. 3, letter 32.
Sir Charles Grandison (1753–1754)

“Of what violences, murders, depredations, have not the epic poets, from all antiquity, been the occasion, by propagating false honour, false glory, and false religion?”

Samuel Richardson book The History of Sir Charles Grandison

Vol. 6, letter 45.
Sir Charles Grandison (1753–1754)

“Nothing can be more wounding to a spirit not ungenerous, than a generous forgiveness.”

Samuel Richardson book Clarissa

Vol. 2, p. 478; Letter 135.
Clarissa (1747–1748)

“The World, thinking itself affronted by superior merit, takes delight to bring it down to its own level.”

Samuel Richardson book The History of Sir Charles Grandison

Vol. 1, letter 36.
Sir Charles Grandison (1753–1754)

“I am forced, as I have often said, to try to make myself laugh, that I may not cry: for one or other I must do.”

Samuel Richardson book Clarissa

Vol. 2, p. 231; Letter 92.
Clarissa (1747–1748)

“Vast is the field of Science … the more a man knows, the more he will find he has to know.”

Samuel Richardson book The History of Sir Charles Grandison

Vol. 1, letter 11.
Sir Charles Grandison (1753–1754)

“O! what a Godlike Power is that of doing Good! — I envy the Rich and the Great for nothing else!”

Samuel Richardson book Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded

Page 312
Pamela (1740)

“The pen is almost as pretty an implement in a woman's fingers, as a needle.”

Samuel Richardson

Page 120.
The Correspondence of Samuel Richardson with Lady Bradshaigh (1804)

“Love gratified, is love satisfied — and love satisfied, is indifference begun.”

Samuel Richardson book Clarissa

Vol. 2, p. 452; Letter 126.
Clarissa (1747–1748)

“My Master said, on another Occasion, that those who doubt most, always erred least.”

Samuel Richardson book Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded

Page 332
Pamela (1740)

“The mind can be but full. It will be as much filled with a small disagreeable occurrence, having no other, as with a large one.”

Samuel Richardson book The History of Sir Charles Grandison

Vol. 6, letter 46.
Sir Charles Grandison (1753–1754)

“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 book The History of Sir Charles Grandison

Vol. 1, letter 37.
Sir Charles Grandison (1753–1754)

“That dangerous but too commonly received notion, that a reformed rake makes the best husband.”

Samuel Richardson book Clarissa

Vol. 1, p. 5; Preface.
Clarissa (1747–1748)

“The pleasures of the mighty are obtained by the tears of the poor.”

Samuel Richardson book Clarissa

Vol. 1, p. 286; Letter 43.
Clarissa (1747–1748)

“Those who have least to do are generally the most busy people in the world.”

Samuel Richardson book The History of Sir Charles Grandison

Vol. 2, letter 3.
Sir Charles Grandison (1753–1754)

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