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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.

Richard Steele

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Richard Steele
Age: 57 †
Born: 1672
Born: March 12
Died: 1729
Died: September 1
Journalist
Playwright
Politician
Writer
Dublin city
Sir Richard Steele
Art
Conceal
People
Maxims
Cunning
Appear
Meet
Among
Greatest
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Maxim

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Modesty never rages, never murmurs, never pouts when it is ill-treated, it pines, it beseeches, it languishes.
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A favor well bestowed is almost as great an honor to him who confers it as to him who receives it.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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A fool is in himself the object of pity, until he is flattered.
Richard Steele
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I look upon it as a Point of Morality, to be obliged by those who endeavour to oblige me
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There can hardly, I believe, be imagined a more desirable pleasure than that of praise unmixed with any possibility of flattery.
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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.
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Fire and swords are slow engines of destruction, compared to the tongue of a Gossip.
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No woman is capable of being beautiful who is not incapable of being false.
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The survivorship of a worthy man in his son is a pleasure scarce inferior to the hopes of the continuance of his own life.
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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.
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Conversation never sits easier upon us than when we now and then discharge ourselves in a symphony of laughter, which may not improperly be called the chorus of conversation.
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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.
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The world is grown so full of dissimulation and compliment, that men's words are hardly any signification of their thoughts.
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The insupportable labor of doing nothing.
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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.
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Many take pleasure in spreading abroad the weakness of an exalted character.
Richard Steele
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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.
Richard Steele