A man may go to Heaven with half the pains which it costs him to purchase Hell.
~ in Jonathan Wild
There are a set of religions, or rather moral writings, which teach that virtue is the certain road to happiness, and vice to misery, in this world. A very wholesome and comfortable doctrine, and to which we have but one objection, namely, that it is not true.
~ in Tom Jones
There is perhaps no surer mark of folly, than to attempt to correct natural infirmities of those we love.
~ in Tom Jones, bk. ii, ch. 7
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!
A rich man without charity is a rogue; and perhaps it would be no difficult matter to prove that he is also a fool.
Adversity is the trial of principle. Without it a man hardly knows whether he is honest or not.
Dancing begets warmth, which is the parent of wantonness.
Fashion is the science of appearance, and it inspires one with the desire to seem rather than to be.
Guilt has very quick ears to an accusation.
He that can heroically endure adversity will bear prosperity with equal greatness of soul; for the mind that cannot be dejected by the former is not likely to be transported with the later.
It hath been often said, that it is not death, but dying, which is terrible.
Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.
Make money your god and it will plague you like the devil.
Money is the fruit of evil, as often as the root of it.
Neither great poverty nor great riches will hear reason.
Now, in reality, the world have paid too great a compliment to critics, and have imagined them to be men of much greater profundity then they really are.
One fool at least in every married couple.
Read in order to live.
Scarcely one person in a thousand is capable of tasting the happiness of others.
The characteristic of coquettes is affectation governed by whim.
The devil take me, if I think anything but love to be the object of love.
The prudence of the best heads is often defeated by the tenderness of the best hearts.
There is an insolence which none but those who themselves deserve contempt can bestow, and those only who deserve no contempt can bear.
There is not in the universe a more ridiculous, nor a more contemptible animal, than a proud clergyman.
We are as liable to be corrupted by books, as by companions.
What’s vice today may be virtue, tomorrow.
When children are doing nothing, they are doing mischief.
When I’m not thanked at all, I’m thanked enough, I’ve done my duty, and I’ve done no more.
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.
Where the law ends tyranny begins.
Wine is a turncoat; first a friend and then an enemy.
Worth begets in base minds, envy; in great souls, emulation.
