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All human excellence is but comparative — there are persons who excel us, as much as we fancy we excel the meanest.

Samuel Richardson

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Samuel Richardson
Age: 73 †
Born: 1687
Born: August 19
Died: 1761
Died: July 4
Novelist
Writer
S. Richardson
Persons
Human
Humans
Comparative
Much
Meanest
Excel
Fancy
Excellence
May

More quotes by Samuel Richardson

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What pity that Religion and Love, which heighten our relish for the things of both worlds, should ever run the human heart into enthusiasm, superstition, or uncharitableness!
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The seeds of Death are sown in us when we begin to live, and grow up till, like rampant weeds, they choak the tender flower of life.
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Over-niceness may be under-niceness.
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The grace that makes every grace amiable is humility.
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There would be no supporting life were we to feel quite as poignantly for others as we do for ourselves.
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Those commands of superiors which are contrary to our first duties are not to be obeyed.
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What we want to tell, we wish our friend to have curiosity to hear.
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It is a happy art to know when one has said enough. I would leave my hearers wishing me to say more rather than give them cause toshow, by their inattention, that I had said too much.
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Friendly satire may be compared to a fine lancet, which gently breathes a vein for health's sake.
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Men are less forgiving than women.
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Romances in general are calculated rather to fire the imagination, than to inform the judgment.
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Great allowances ought to be made for the petulance of persons labouring under ill-health.
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Things we wish to be true are apt to gain too ready credit with us.
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Women do not often fall in love with philosophers.
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Honeymoon lasts not nowadays above a fortnight.
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I am forced, as I have often said, to try to make myself laugh, that I may not cry: for one or other I must do.
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Vast is the field of Science... the more a man knows, the more he will find he has to know.
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Parents cannot expect advice to have the same force upon their children as experience has upon themselves.
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The World, thinking itself affronted by superior merit, takes delight to bring it down to its own level.
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A feeling heart is a blessing that no one, who has it, would be without and it is a moral security of innocence since the heart that is able to partake of the distress of another, cannot wilfully give it.
Samuel Richardson