Sarah Fielding Quotes

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.

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.

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.

[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.

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.

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 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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

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.