Pamela Samuel Richardson Quotes

Be sure don't let people's telling you, you are pretty, puff you up; for you did not make yourself, and so can have no praise due to you for it. It is virtue and goodness only, that make the true beauty.

I will be a Friend to you, and you shall take care of my Linen

O how can wicked men seem so steady and untouched with such black hearts, while poor innocents stand like malefactors before them!

...for my master, bad as I have thought him, is not half so bad as this woman.--To be sure she must be an atheist!

I will bear any thing you can inflict upon me with Patience, even to the laying down of my Life, to shew my Obedience to you in other Cases; but I cannot be patient, I cannot be passive, when my Virtue is at Stake!

Well, my story, surely, would furnish out a surprising kind of novel, if it were to be well told.

This, I suppose, makes me such a sauce-box, and bold-face, and a creature, and all because I won't be a sauce-box and bold-face indeed.

What the deuse do we men go to school for? If our wits were equal to women's, we might spare much time and pains in our education: for nature teaches your sex, what, in a long course of labour and study, ours can hardly attain to.

I hope, as he assures me, he was not guilty of Indecency; but have Reason to bless God, who, by disabling me in my Faculties, enabled me to preserve my Innocence; and when all my Strength would have signified nothing, magnified himself in my Weakness.

And pray, said I, walking on, how came I to be his Property? What Right has he in me, but such as a Thief may plead to stolen Goods?

Is it not strange, that Love borders so much upon Hate? But this wicked Love is not like the true virtuous Love, to be sure: That and Hatred must be as far off, as Light and Darkness. And how must this Hate have been increased, if he had met with a base Compliance, after his wicked Will had been gratify'd?

Well, but, Mrs. Jervis, said I, let me ask you, if he can stoop to like such a poor girl as me, as perhaps he may, (for I have read of things almost as strange, from great men to poor damsels,) What can it be for?—He may condescend, perhaps, to think I may be good enough for his harlot; and those things don't disgrace men that ruin poor women, as the world goes.

Many a man has been ashamed of his wicked attempts, when he has been repulsed, that would never have been ashamed of them, had he succeeded.

Why should the guiltless tremble so, when the guilty can possess their minds in peace?

Emma that had somehow made its way over the pond; first editions of Samuel Richardson’s Pamela and Fanny Burney’s Camilla, and Corinne by Madame de Staël; and an early edition in French of Dante’s Divine Comedy.

But it was not until Samuel Richardson’s Pamela in 1740 and, a decade later, Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, that the novel reached the form as we know it today, and opened an outpouring of work in 19C that would transform literature throughout the West.

Henry Fielding’s first novel was published in April 1741 under the name of Mr. Conny Keyber and sold for one shilling and sixpence. Although the author never owned to writing the short satirical novel, it is widely considered to be his work. An Apology for the Life of Mrs Shamela Andrews is a direct attack on the contemporary novel Pamela, published in November 1740, by Fielding’s rival Samuel Richardson.

The first collection which he published, intituled PAMELA, exhibited the beauty and superiority of virtue in an innocent and unpolished mind, with the reward which often, even in this life, a protecting Providence bestows on goodness. A young woman of low degree, relating to her honest parents the severe trials she met with from a master who ought to have been the protector, not the assailer of her honour, shews the character of a libertine in its truly contemptible light.

La sciagurata ha troppi difetti di suo per tollerarne di simili in chiunque altro.

Why, Sir, if you were to read Richardson for the story, your impatience would be so much fretted that you would hang yourself. But you must read him for the sentiment, and consider the story as only giving occasion to the sentiment.

La mia anima ha la stessa importanza dell'anima di una principessa, anche se come rango io mi trovo alla pari del più umile schiavo.

What then, presumptuous Pamela, dost thou here, thought I? Quit with Speed these guilty Banks, and flee from these dashing Waters, that even in their sounding Murmurs, this still Night, reproach thy Rashness! Tempt not God's Good|ness on the mossy Banks, that have been Witnesses of thy guilty Intentions; and while thou hast Power left thee, avoid the tempting Evil, lest thy grand Enemy, now repuls'd by Divine Grace, and due Reflection, return to the Charge with a Force that thy Weakness may not be able to resist! And lest one rash Moment destroy all the Convictions, which now have aw'd thy rebellious Mind into Duty and Resignation to the Divine Will!

O, Sir, said I, either I have not Words, or else the English Tongue affords them not, to express sufficiently my Gratitude. Learn me, dear Sir, continued I, and pressed his dear Hands to my Lips, learn me some other Language, if there be any, that abounds with more grateful Terms, that I may not thus be choaked with Meanings, for which I can find no adequate Utterance.

Il filosofo che contemplava il teschio di un re e quello di un povero, non vi ravvisò differenza.

let me read over again that fearful letter of yours, that I may get it by heart, and with it feed my distress, and make calamity familiar to me.

They reflected a broader

O the unparalleled wickedness, stratagems, and devices, of those who call themselves gentlemen, yet pervert the design of Providence, in giving them ample means to do good, to their own everlasting perdition, and the ruin of poor oppressed innocence!

Chi dubita di se stesso di rado sbaglia.

Ma è certo, questo ve lo devo confessare, che non potrò mai pensare a nessun altro al mondo se non a lui! Presunzione! direte voi; e questo è. Ma l'amore, immagino, non è una cosa volontaria -l'amore, ho detto! Ma andiamo, io non spero: perlomeno non è, spero, andato così lontano da mettermi molto a disagio: poiché io non so come è venuto, né quando è iniziato, ma mi si è insinuato addosso strisciando, strisciando, come un ladro, e prima che sapessi di che si trattava, aveva l'aspetto dell'amore.

Il mondo forma i suoi giudizi sulle nostre azioni piuttosto dai fatti che da dove stia la ragione nei casi dubbi.