Sarah Fielding Quotations

Flattery in courtship is the highest insolence, for whilst it pretends to bestow on you more than you deserve, it is watching an opportunity to take from you what you really have.

The words of kindness are more healing to a drooping heart than balm or honey.

If modesty and candor are necessary to an author in his judgment of his own works, no less are they in his reader.

I fancied I had some constancy of mind because I could bear my own sufferings, but found through the sufferings of others I could be weakened like a child.

The loss of liberty which must attend being a wife was of all things the most horrible to my imagination.

Tis this desire of bending all things to our own purposes which turns them into confusion and is the chief source of every error in our lives.

I was condemned to be beheaded, or burnt, as the king pleased; and he was graciously pleased, from the great remains of his love, to choose the mildest sentence.

The supposition that it was possible for any woman to be so mean-spirited as not at least to wish to tear out her rival's eyes was too hard for the digestion of the Cry.

The motives to actions and the inward turns of mind seem in our opinion more necessary to be known than the actions themselves; and much rather would we choose that our reader should clearly understand what our principal actors think than what they do.

Men look on knowledge which they learn--or might learn--from others as they do on the most beautiful structures which are not their own: in outward objects, they would rather behold their own hogsty than their neighbor's palace; and in mental ones, would prefer one grain of knowledge gained by their own observation to all the wisdom of a thousand Solomons.

Thoroughly to unfold the labyrinths of the human mind is an arduous task.... In order to dive into those recesses and lay them open to the reader in a striking and intelligible manner, 'tis necessary to assume a certain freedom in writing, not strictly perhaps within the limits prescribed by rules.

I know not whether it would be too bold an assertion to say that candor makes capacity.... But in order to try the truth of any observation relating to the mind, the easiest method is to illustrate it by outward objects. If, for instance, a man was to sweat and labor all the days of his life to fill a chest which was already full, the absurdity of his vain endeavor would be glaring. In the same manner, when the human mind is filled and stuffed with notions brought thither by fallacious inclinations, there is no room for truth to enter: candor being banished, passions alone bear the sway.

There is yet another kind of matrimonial dialect (which naturally succeeds this of talking at each other), which may very properlybe styled The Language Contradictory.... In the former, however plain the object of satire may be exhibited to the whole company, yet there always remains some little covering.... But in this last method, the defiance becomes more open and the impetuosity with which these contradictions are uttered (although the subjects of them are often of the most indifferent nature) evidently prove that they arise from passion.

[Allegory] is a flight by which the human wit attempts at one and the same time to investigate two objects, and consequently is fitted only to the most exalted geniuses.

[H]ow do I pity those who (assuming the name of friends) surround themselves with maxims importing the wisdom of doubt and suspicion, 'til they impose on themselves that very hard task of laboring through life without ever knowing a human creature to whom they can make the proper use of language and freely speak the dictates of their hearts!

What I mean by love ... is this. A sympathetic liking--excited by fancy, directed by judgment--and to which is joined also a most sincere desire of the good and happiness of its object.

Yet if strict criticism should till frown on our method, let candor and good humor forgive what is done to the best of our judgment, for the sake of perspicuity in the story and the delight and entertainment of our candid reader.

On the wings of fancy, gentle readers, bear yourselves into the mid-air, where by imagination you may form a large stupendous castle.

[F]or as Socrates says that a wise man is a citizen of the world, so I thought that a wise woman was equally at liberty to range through every station or degree of men, to fix her choice wherever she pleased.

[T]he judicious reader ought to know what the chief character in any work of the imagination will naturally perform, according to the situation he is thrown into, as well as doth the author himself.

But in all things whether we shall make only a due use of the liberties we have asked, is left entirely to the judicious reader to decide.

Their virtues lived in their children. The family changed its persons but not its manners, and they continued a blessing to the world from generation to generation.

I was amongst the virtues like the great Turk in his seraglio of women, and I chose to dwell with that virtue which looked the fairest in my eyes and gave me at that season most pleasure. In short, I made wives of them: I first admired them, then made them my own property, and if they would not submit to my will, I again turned them off and divorced them.

I am none of those nonsensical fools that can whine and make romantic love--I leave that to younger brothers. Let my estate speakfor me.

I believe no gentleman would like to have his family affairs neglected because his wife was filling her head with crotchets and pothooks, and who, because she understood a few scraps of Latin, valued that more than minding her needle or providing her husband's dinner.

Little miss is taught by her mamma that she must never speak before she is spoken to. On this she sits bridling up her head, looking from one to the other, in hopes of being called to and addressed by the name of pretty miss.... But if this should not happen and no one should take any notice of her, she is ready to cry at the neglect. But should there be another miss in the room caressed and taken notice of whilst she is thus overlooked, it will be impossible for her to contain her tears, and blubbering is the word.

Agreeable then to my present inclination, I formed the object of my own worship, which was no other than my own understanding.

[F]or women, like tradesmen, draw in the injudicious to buy their goods by the high value they themselves set upon them.... They endeavor strongly to fix in the minds of their enamoratos their own high value, and then contrive as much as possible to make them believe that they have so many purchasers at hand that the goods--if they do not make haste--will all be gone.

I endeavor not to conceal that I believe there is a great mixture of desire in the passion which is called love--or rather, without any far-fetched strain on words, it may be called the companion of love.

There appears to be but two grand master passions or movers in the human mind, namely, love and pride. And what constitutes the beauty or deformity of a man's character is the choice he makes under which banner he determines to enlist himself. But there is a strong distinction between different degress in the same thing and a mixture of two contraries.

I had some short struggle in my mind whether I should resign my lover or my liberty, but this lasted not long. I found myself as free as air and could not bear the thought of putting myself in any man's power for life only from a present capricious inclination.

I often used to think myself in the case of the fox-hunter, who, when he had toiled and sweated all day in the chase as if some unheard-of blessing was to crown his success, finds at last all he has got by his labor is a stinking nauseous animal. But my condition was yet worse than his; for he leaves the loathsome wretch to be torn by his hounds, whilst I was obliged to fondle mine, and meanly pretend him to be the object of my love.