Henry Fielding

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

— Henry Fielding

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

— 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

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

— Henry Fielding

Much may be said on both sides.

— Henry Fielding

Enough is equal to a feast.

— Henry Fielding

The dusky night rides down the sky,And a-hunting we will go.

— Henry Fielding

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

— Henry Fielding

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

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

This story will not go down.

— Henry Fielding

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

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

— Henry Fielding

Love and scandal are the best sweeteneers of tea.

— Henry Fielding

All Nature wears one universal grin.

— Henry Fielding

Petition me no petitions, sir, to-day;And this our queen shall be as drunk as we.

— Henry Fielding

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

— Henry Fielding

Thy modesty's a candle to thy merit.

— Henry Fielding

To sun myself in Huncamunca's eyes.

— Henry Fielding

Lo, when two dogs are fighting in the streets,And this dog smarts for what that dog has done.

— Henry Fielding

We must eat to live and live to eat.

— Henry Fielding

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

Penny saved is a penny got.

— Henry Fielding

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.

— Henry Fielding

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

— Henry Fielding

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

— Henry Fielding

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

— Henry Fielding

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

— Henry Fielding

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

— Henry Fielding

They are the affectation of affectation.

— Henry Fielding

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

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

— Henry Fielding

Men who pay for what they eat will insist on gratifying their palates

— 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

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

— Henry Fielding

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

...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

If you make money your god, it will plague you like the devil.

— Henry Fielding

Every physician almost hath his favorite disease.

— Henry Fielding

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

— Henry Fielding

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

— Henry Fielding

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.

— Henry Fielding

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

Distinction without a difference.

— Henry Fielding

Amiable weakness.

— Henry Fielding

The dignity of history.

— Henry Fielding

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

— Henry Fielding

Hairbreadth missings of happiness look like the insults of Fortune.

— Henry Fielding

Republic of letters.

— Henry Fielding

When children are doing nothing, they are doing mischief.

— Henry Fielding

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

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

— Henry Fielding

Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.

— Henry Fielding

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

— Henry Fielding

Guilt has very quick ears to an accusation.

— Henry Fielding

These are called the pious frauds of friendship.

— Henry Fielding

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

One fool at least in every married couple.

— Henry Fielding

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?

— Henry Fielding

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

— Henry Fielding

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

— Henry Fielding