Richard Steele Quotes

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

It is an endless and frivolous Pursuit to act by any other Rule than the Care of satisfying our own Minds in what we do.

Since our persons are not of our own making, when they are such as appear defective or uncomely, it is, methinks, an honest and laudable fortitude to dare to be ugly.

Mutual good humor is a dress we ought to appear in wherever we meet, and we should make no mention of what concerns ourselves, without it be of matters wherein our friends ought to rejoice.

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

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

There is hardly that person to be found who is not more concerned for the reputation of wit and sense, than honesty and virtue.

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

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

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

Simplicity of all things is the hardest to be copy.

The world will never be in any manner of order or tranquility until men are firmly convinced that conscience, honor and credit are all in one interest

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.

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

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

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

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.

Modesty never rages, never murmurs, never pouts; when it is ill-treated, it pines, it beseeches, it languishes.

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

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

It is the duty of a great person so to demean himself, as that whatever endowments he may have, he may appear to value himself upon no qualities but such as any man may arrive at.

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

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

The praise of an ignorant man is only good-will, and you should receive his kindness as he is a good neighbor in society, and not as a good judge of your actions in point of fame and reputation.

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

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

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

Of all the affections which attend human life, the love of glory is the most ardent.

It is a wonderful thing that so many, and they not reckoned absurd, shall entertain those with whom they converse by giving them the history of their pains and aches and imagine such narrations their quota of conversation.

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.

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

The survivorship of a worthy man in his son is a pleasure scarce inferior to the hopes of the continuance of his own life.

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.

Will. Honeycomb calls these over-offended ladies the outrageously virtuous.

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

Reading is to the mind what exercising is to the body.

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

A woman seldom writes her mind but in her postscript.

Such is the weakness of our nature, that when men are a little exalted in their condition they immediately conceive they have additional senses, and their capacities enlarged not only above other men, but above human comprehension itself.

The man is mechanically turned, and made for getting ... It was verily prettily said that we may learn the little value of fortune by the persons on whom Heaven is pleased to bestow it.

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.

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

To be exempt from the Passions with which others are tormented, is the only pleasing Solitude.

It is a certain sign of an ill heart to be inclined to defamation. They who are harmless and innocent can have no gratification that way; but it ever arises from a neglect of what is laudable in a man's self.

A modest person seldom fails to gain the goodwill of those he converses with, because nobody envies a man who does not appear to be pleased with himself.

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.

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.

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.

It is an impertinent and unreasonable fault in conversation for one man to take up all the discourse.

It may be remarked in general, that the laugh of men of wit is for the most part but a feint, constrained kind of half-laugh, as such persons are never without some diffidence about them; but that of fools is the most honest, natural, open laugh in the world.

The world is grown so full of dissimulation and compliment, that men's words are hardly any signification of their thoughts.

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

Age in a virtuous person, of either sex, carries in it an authority which makes it preferable to all the pleasures of youth.

How few there are who are furnished with abilities sufficient to recommend their actions to the admiration of the world, and distinguish themselves from the rest of mankind.