Samuel Richardson

Samuel Richardson

25 quotes

Known primarily as an English writer and printer, Samuel Richardson also happens to be one of the most quotable figures in our collection. Known for three epistolary novels: Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded (1740), Clarissa; or, The History of a Young Lady (1748) and The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753), their words carry the weight of lived experience. 29 of Samuel Richardson's sharpest quotes live here, spanning themes of Women, Marriage, Power, Humor, and Hope. Perhaps their most recognizable line: "Women are always most observed when they seem themselves least to observe, or to lay out for observation."

“Love before marriage is absolutely necessary.”

— Samuel Richardson

Marriage

All Quotes by Samuel Richardson

“Married people should not be quick to hear what is said by either when in ill humor.”

— Samuel Richardson

Humor

“The Cause of Women is generally the Cause of Virtue.”

— Samuel Richardson

Women

“The difference in the education of men and women must give the former great advantages over the latter, even where geniuses are equal.”

— Samuel Richardson

Education

“Where words are restrained, the eyes often talk a great deal.”

— Samuel Richardson

Great

“Vast is the field of Science. The more a man knows, the more he will find he has to know.”

— Samuel Richardson

Science

“As a child is indulged or checked in its early follies, a ground is generally laid for the happiness or misery of the future man.”

— Samuel Richardson

Future

“Quantity in food is more to be regarded than quality. A full meal is a great enemy both to study and industry.”

— Samuel Richardson

Food

“Smatterers in learning are the most opinionated.”

— Samuel Richardson

Learning

“Women do not often fall in love with philosophers.”

— Samuel Richardson

Women

“The plays and sports of children are as salutary to them as labor and work are to grown persons.”

— Samuel Richardson

Sports

“A widow's refusal of a lover is seldom so explicit as to exclude hope.”

— Samuel Richardson

Hope

“Let a man do what he will by a single woman, the world is encouragingly apt to think Marriage a sufficient amends.”

— Samuel Richardson

Marriage

“If the education and studies of children were suited to their inclinations and capacities, many would be made useful members of society that otherwise would make no figure in it.”

— Samuel Richardson

Education

“Women are so much in love with compliments that rather than want them, they will compliment one another, yet mean no more by it than the men do.”

— Samuel Richardson

Women

“O! what a Godlike Power is that of doing Good! I envy the Rich and the Great for nothing else!”

— Samuel Richardson

Power

“Love before marriage is absolutely necessary.”

— Samuel Richardson

Marriage

“There is a pride, a self-love, in human minds that will seldom be kept so low as to make men and women humbler than they ought to be.”

— Samuel Richardson

Women

“Women are always most observed when they seem themselves least to observe, or to lay out for observation.”

— Samuel Richardson

Women

“From sixteen to twenty, all women, kept in humor by their hopes and by their attractions, appear to be good-natured.”

— Samuel Richardson

Humor

“Men will bear many things from a kept mistress, which they would not bear from a wife.”

— Samuel Richardson

Men