It is better to be thought perverse than insincere.
Samuel Richardson

It is much easier to find fault with others, than to be faultless ourselves.
Samuel Richardson

It may be very generous in one person to offer what it would be ungenerous in another to accept.
Samuel Richardson

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

Love before marriage is absolutely necessary.
Samuel Richardson

Love gratified is love satisfied, and love satisfied is indifference begun.
Samuel Richardson

Love is not a volunteer thing.
Samuel Richardson

Love will draw an elephant through a key-hole.
Samuel Richardson

Marriage is the highest state of friendship. If happy, it lessens our cares by dividing them, at the same time that it doubles our pleasures by mutual participation.
Samuel Richardson

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

Marry first, and love will come after is a shocking assertion; since a thousand things may happen to make the state but barely tolerable, when it is entered into with mutual affection.
Samuel Richardson

Men generally are afraid of a wife who has more understanding than themselves.
Samuel Richardson

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

Necessity may well be called the mother of invention but calamity is the test of integrity.
Samuel Richardson

Nothing dries sooner than tears.
Samuel Richardson

Nothing in human nature is so God-like as the disposition to do good to our fellow-creatures.
Samuel Richardson

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

Parents sometimes make not those allowances for youth, which, when young, they wished to be made for themselves.
Samuel Richardson

People of little understanding are most apt to be angry when their sense is called into question.
Samuel Richardson

People who act like angels ought to have angels to deal with.
Samuel Richardson