Henry Fielding cytaty

„Człowiek nie potrafiłby ocenić piękna dnia i lata, gdyby nie znał nocy i zimy.”

„Lepiej rządzić w piekle, niż być pokojowym w niebie.”

„Człowiek mógłby wejść do nieba za cenę połowy tych trudów, jakie kosztuje go zasłużenie sobie na piekło.”

„Ja sobie sam wezmę twoje wytłumaczenie - odpowiedział Western - ściągaj kubrak! Obiję cię tak, ty półgłówku, jak jeszcześ nigdy w życiu nie był obity!
Tu wybuchnął wymyślaniem, nie szczędząc wyrażeń, które uchodzą tylko między dwoma wiejskimi szlachcicami o odmiennej opinii. Przytaczał często miano pewnej części ciała, które zazwyczaj pojawia się we wszelkich konwersacjach wśród niższych sfer angielskiej szlachty, na wyścigach, w czasie walk kogutów i w innych publicznych miejscach spotkań. Podobne aluzje są również często przytaczane w formie żartu, który, moim zdaniem, jest zazwyczaj błędnie interpretowany. W rzeczywistości dowcip polega na tym, iż radzisz przeciwnikowi, aby pocałował ciebie w d… za to, że zagroziłeś kopnięciem go w d…, bo zaobserwowałem z całą pewnością, że nikt nigdy nie proponuje, żebyś ty go kopnął, ani nie występuje z propozycją pocałowania ciebie w omawianą część ciała.
Może również wydać się zdumiewające, iż pomimo wielu tysięcy uprzejmych zaproszeń tego rodzaju, które musiał słyszeć każdy, kto przestawał z wiejską szlachtą, nikt - o ile wiem - nie był ani razu świadkiem, aby owo życzenie było spełnione - wyraźny przykład prowincjonalnego braku grzeczności, bo w miastach jest to powszechnie spotykaną ceremonią, którą najelegantsi panowie odprawiają codziennie w stosunku do swoich zwierzchników, wcale nawet o to nie proszeni.

Tom Jones, t. 1, s. 297.”

“The only source of the true Ridiculous (as it appears to me) is affectation”

“I am content; that is a blessing greater than riches; and he to whom that is given need ask no more.”

“Love and scandal are the best sweeteneers of tea.”

“It is much easier to make good men wise, than to make bad men good.”

“Some folks rail against other folks, because other folks have what some folks would be glad of.”

“Money is the fruit of evil as often as the root of it.”

“I describe not men, but manners; not an individual, but a species.”

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

“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.”

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

“A comic writer should of all others be the least excused for deviating from nature, since it may not be always so easy for a serious poet to meet with the great and the admirable; but life every where furnishes an accurate observer with the ridiculous.”

“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.”

“A good face, they say, is a letter of recommendation. O Nature, Nature, why art thou so dishonest, as ever to send men with these false recommendations into the World?”

“Guilt has very quick ears to an accusation.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

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

“One fool at least in every married couple.”

“This story will not go down.”

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

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

“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.”

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

“In reality, the world have payed too great a compliment to critics, and have imagined them men of much greater profundity than they really are.”

“All Nature wears one universal grin.”

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