Richard Steele Quotes

Whenever you commend, add your reasons for doing so; it is this which distinguishes the approbation of a man of sense from the flattery of sycophants and admiration of fools.

Fire and swords are slow engines of destruction, compared to the tongue of a Gossip.

People spend their lives in the service of their passions instead of employing their passions in the service of their lives.

Among all the diseases of the mind there is not one more epidemical or more pernicious than the love of flattery.

Vanity makes people ridiculous, pride odious, and ambition terrible.

There is no Pleasure like that of receiving Praise from the Praiseworthy

A lie is troublesome, and sets a man's invention upon the rack, and one trick needs a great many more to make it good.

Violins are the lively, forward, importunate wits, that distinguish themselves by the flourishes of imagination, sharpness of repartee, glances of satire, and bear away the upper part in every consort.

A fool is in himself the object of pity, until he is flattered.

Zeal for the public good is the characteristic of a man of honor and a gentleman, and must take the place of pleasures, profits and all other private gratifications.

I look upon it as a Point of Morality, to be obliged by those who endeavour to oblige me

The person, whom you favored with a loan, if he be a good man, will think himself in your debt after he has paid you.

I love to consider an Infidel, whether distinguished by the title of deist, atheist, or free-thinker.

He that has sense knows that learning is not knowledge, but rather the art of using it.

It is a secret known but to few, yet of no small use in the conduct of life, that when you fall into a man's conversation, the first thing you should consider is, whether he has a greater inclination to hear you, or that you should hear him.

The married state, with and without the affection suitable to it, is the completest image of heaven and hell we are capable of receiving in this life.

One common calamity makes men extremely affect each other, though they differ in every other particular

I cannot think of any character below the flatterer, except he who envies him

Pleasure, when it is a man's chief purpose, disappoints itself; and the constant application to it palls the faculty of enjoying it.

It is to beoted that when any part of this paper appears dull there is a design in it.

It is a very melancholy reflection that men are usually so weak that it is absolutely necessary for them to know sorrow and pain to be in their right senses.

That man never grows old who keeps a child in his heart

Since we cannot promise our selves constant health, let us endeavour at such temper as may be our best support in the decay of it.

A Woman is naturally more helpless than the other Sex; and a Man of Honour and Sense should have this in his View in all Manner of Commerce with her.

A healthy old fellow, who is not a fool, is the happiest creature living.

I love to consider an Infidel, whether distinguished by the title of deist, atheist, or free-thinker, by three different lights, in his solitude, his afflictions, and his last moments.... [In these situations such people show themselves] in solitude, incapable or rapture or elevation, ... in distress, [with] a halter or a pistol the only refuge [they] can fly to, ... [and liable to conversion] at the approach of death.

Nothing is more silly than the pleasure some people take in "speaking their minds." A man of this make will say a rude thing for the mere pleasure of saying it, when an opposite behavior, full as innocent, might have preserved his friend, or made his fortune.

Readings is to the mind what exercice is to the body.

A little in drink, but at all times your faithful husband.

No woman is capable of being beautiful who is not incapable of being false.

There can hardly, I believe, be imagined a more desirable pleasure than that of praise unmixed with any possibility of flattery.

Pride destroys all symmetry and grace, and affectation is a more terrible enemy to fine faces than the small-pox.

There are so few who can grow old with a good grace.

It has been a sort of maxim, that the greatest art is to conceal art; but I know not how, among some people we meet with, their greatest cunning is to appear cunning.

Whoever would be wise should read the Proverbs; whoever would be holy should read the Psalms.

A Daughter: The companion, the friend, and the confidant of her mother, and the object of a pleasure something like the love between the angels to her father.

Whether a pretty woman grants or withholds her favors, she always likes to be asked for them.

Though her mien carries much more invitation than command, to behold her is an immediate check to loose behaviour; to love her was a liberal education.

Praise from an enemy is the most pleasing of all commendations.

Though very troublesome to others, anger is most so to him that has it.

A woman seldom writes her mind but in her postscript

You see, among men who are honored with the common appellation ogentleman, many contradictions to that character.

Many take pleasure in spreading abroad the weakness of an exalted character.

I know of no manner of speaking so offensive as that of giving praise, and closing it with an exception.

Simplicity of all things is the hardest to be copy.

A man advanced in years that thinks fit to look back on his former life, and calls that only life which was passed with satisfaction and enjoyment, excluding all parts which were not pleasant to him, will find himself very young, if not in infancy.

Nothing can atone for the lack of modesty; without which beauty is ungraceful and wit detestable.

A man cannot have an idea of perfection in another, which he was never sensible of in himself.

A favor well bestowed is almost as great an honor to him who confers it as to him who receives it.

When a man has no design but to speak plain truth, he may say a great deal in a very narrow compass.