Henry Fielding

“ Our wonder ceases; our delight is lessened; but our love remains; of which passion, goodness hath always appeared to me the only true and proper object. On this head I think proper to observe, that I do not conceive my good man to be absolutely a fool or a coward; but that he often partakes too little of parts or courage to have any pretensions to greatness. ”

“ The truth, I apprehend, is, we often confound the ideas of goodness and greatness together, or rather include the former in our idea of the latter. If this be so, it is surely a great error, and no less than a mistake of the capacity for the will. In reality, no qualities can be more distinct: for as it cannot be doubted but that benevolence, honour, honesty, and charity, make a good man ”

“ Nay, though it is, I believe, impossible to give vice a true relish of honour and glory, or, though we give it riches and power, to give it the enjoyment of them, yet it contaminates the food it can't taste, and sullies the robe which neither fits nor becomes it, till virtue disdains them both. ”

“ Roguery, and not a rogue, is my subject; and as I have been so far from endeavouring to particularize any individual, that I have with my utmost art avoided it; so will any such application be unfair in my reader, especially if he knows much of the great world, since he must then be acquainted, I believe, with more than one on whom he can fix the resemblance.
In the third place, I solemnly protest, I do by no means intend in the character of my hero to represent human nature in general. ”

“ Nor do I know anything which can raise an honest man's indignation higher than that the same morals should be in one place attended with all imaginable misery and infamy, and in the other, with the highest luxury and honour. Let any impartial man in his senses be asked, for which of these two places a composition of cruelty, lust, avarice, rapine, insolence, hypocrisy, fraud and treachery, was best fitted, surely his answer must be certain and immediate ”

“ The last of these is the true sublime, in human nature. That elevation by which the soul of man, raising and extending itself above the order of this creation, and brightened with a certain ray of divinity, looks down on the condition of mortals. ”

“ If there are then any men of such morals who dare to call themselves great, and are so reputed, or called at least, by the deceived multitude, surely a little private censure by the few is a very moderate tax for them to pay, provided no more was to be demanded: but I fear this is not the case. However the glare of riches, and awe of title, may dazzle and terrify the vulgar; nay, however hypocrisy may deceive the more discerning, there is still a judge in every man's breast, which none can cheat nor corrupt, though perhaps it is the only uncorrupt thing about him. ”

“ But without considering Newgate as no other than human nature with its mask off, which some very shameless writers have done, a thought which no price should purchase me to entertain, I think we may be excused for suspecting, that the splendid palaces of the great are often no other than Newgate with the mask on. ”

“ Nor hath goodness less advantage in the article of pleasure, than of honour over this kind of greatness. The same righteous judge always annexes a bitter anxiety to the purchases of guilt, whilst it adds a double sweetness to the enjoyments of innocence and virtue: for fear, which all the wise agree is the most wretched of human evils, is, in some degree, always attending on the former, and never can in any manner molest the happiness of the latter. ”

“ A man may therefore be great without being good, or good without being great.
However, though the one bear no necessary dependence on the other, neither is there any absolute repugnancy among them which may totally prevent their union so that they may, though not of necessity, assemble in the same mind, as they actually did, and all in the highest degree, in those of Socrates and Brutus; and perhaps in some among us. I at least know one to whom Nature could have added no one great or good quality more than she hath bestowed on him. ”

“ Nothing seems to me more preposterous than that, while the way to true honour lies so open and plain, men should seek false by such perverse and rugged paths: that while it is so easy and safe, and truly honourable, to be good, men should wade through difficulty and danger, and real infamy, to be great, or, to use a synonymous word, villains. ”

“ To this accident alone, I have the vanity to apprehend, the play owes most of the glaring faults with which it appeared. However, I resolved rather to let it take its chance, imperfect as it was, with the assistance of Mr. Garrick, than to sacrifice a more favourite, and in the opinion of others, a much more valuable performance, and which could have had very little assistance from him. ”

“ As to the Essay on Conversation, however it may be executed, my design in it will be at least allowed good; being to ridicule out of society one of the most pernicious evils which attends it, viz., pampering the gross appetites of selfishness and ill-nature with the shame and disquietude of others; whereas I have endeavoured in it to show, that true good-breeding consists in contributing, with our utmost power, to the satisfaction and happiness of all about us. ”

“ Such insinuations must be attended with very dreadful conclusions; nor do I see any other tendency they can naturally have, but to encourage and soothe men in their villanies, and to make every well-disposed man disclaim his own species, and curse the hour of his birth into such a society. ”

“ The play was read to Mr. Rich upwards of twelve years since, in the presence of a very eminent physician of this age, who will bear me testimony, that I did not recommend my performance with the usual warmth of an author. Indeed I never thought, until this season, that there existed on any one stage, since the death of that great actor and actress above mentioned, any two persons capable of supplying their loss in those parts: for characters of this kind do, of all others, require most support from the actor, and lend the least assistance to him. ”