Inspirational Quotes by Richard Steele (Irish Writer, Journalist)

Inspirational Quotations by Richard Steele (Irish Writer, Journalist)

Sir Richard Steele (1672–1729,) pseudonym Isaac Bickerstaff, Irish essayist, dramatist, journalist, and politician. Considered the father of journalism, he is best known as a principal author (with Joseph Addison) of the periodicals The Tatler and The Spectator.

Born in Dublin, Steele was educated at Charterhouse, where Joseph Addison was a contemporary, and Merton College, Oxford. Steele entered the army as a cadet in the Life Guards and wrote the dramas The Funeral (1701,) The Lying Lover (1703,) and The Tender Husband (1705.) He subsequently became the writer of The London Gazette, the official government journal.

Steele started the Tatler, published thrice-weekly 1709–11, and wrote almost all of the content. Started as a newspaper to feed the arguments of “coffee-house politicians,” it soon became a compendium of gossip, reviews, contemporary satire, and energetic social and moral essays, with intermittent articles on literature.

With Addison Steele also founded The Spectator (1711–12) and The Guardian (s.1743.) He briefly entered parliament (1713.)

University of North Carolina English professor Richmond Pugh Bond wrote the biography The Tatler (1972.)

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Richard Steele

It is not easy to surround life with any circumstances in which youth will not be delightful; and I am afraid that, whether married or unmarried, we shall find the vesture of terrestrial existence more heavy and cumbrous the longer it is worn.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Youth

Inquisitive people are the funnels of conversation; they do not take anything for their own use, but merely to pass it on to others.
—Richard Steele

Whenever you commend, add your reasons for doing so; it is this which distinguishes the approbation of a man of sense from the flattery of sycophants and admiration of fools.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Praise

The marriage state, with and without the affection suitable to it, is the completest image of Heaven and Hell we are capable of receiving in this life.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Marriage

A favor well bestowed is almost as great an honor to him who confers it as to him who receives it.
—Richard Steele

Human life is too short to recompense the cares which attend the most private condition: therefore it is, that our souls are made, as it were, too big for it; and extend themselves in the prospect of a longer existence, in good fame, and memory of worthy actions, after our decease.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Fame

As ceremony is the invention of wise men to keep fools at a distance, so good-breeding is an expedient to make fools and wise men equal.
—Richard Steele

Allow no man to be so free with you as to praise you to your face.—Your vanity, by this means, will want its food, but at the same time your passion for esteem will be more fully gratified; men will praise you in their actions; where you now receive one compliment, you will then receive twenty civilities.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Praise, Flattery

Pleasure, when it is a man’s chief purpose, disappoints itself; and the constant application to it palls the faculty of enjoying it, and leaves the sense of our inability for that we wish, with a disrelish of everything else. Thus the intermediate seasons of the man of pleasure are more heavy than one would impose upon the vilest criminal.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Pleasure

I cannot think of any character below the flatterer, except he who envies him.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Flattery

A man endowed with great perfections, without good-breeding, is like one who has his pockets full of gold, but always wants change for his ordinary occasions.
—Richard Steele

This portable quality of good humor seasons all the parts and occurrences we meet with in such a manner that there are no moments lost, but they all pass with so much satisfaction that the heaviest of loads, when it is a load, that of time, is never felt by us.
—Richard Steele

Lies which are told out of arrogance and ostentation, a man should detect in his own defense, because he should not be triumphed over. Lies which are told out of malice he should expose, both for his own sake and that of the rest of mankind, because every man should rise against a common enemy; but the officious liar, many have argued, is to be excused, because it does some man good, and no man hurt.
—Richard Steele

When you fall into a man’s conversation, the first thing you should consider is, whether he has a greater inclination to hear you, or that you should hear him.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Conversation

It is to be noted that when any part of this paper appears dull there is a design in it.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Design

Simplicity, of all things, is the hardest to be copied.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Simplicity

Simplicity of all things is the hardest to copy.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Simplicity

Zeal for the public good is the characteristic of a man of honor and a gentleman, and must take place of pleasures, profits, and all other private gratifications. Whoever wants this motive, is an open enemy, or an inglorious neuter to mankind, in proportion to the misapplied advantages with which nature and fortune have blessed him.
—Richard Steele

In thee oppressors soothe their angry brow; in thee, th’ oppress’d forget tyrannic pow’r; in thee, the wretch condemn’d is equal to his judge; and the sad lover to his cruel fair; nay, all the shining glories men pursue, when thou art wanted, are but empty noise.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Sleep

Nothing can atone for the lack of modesty; without which beauty is ungraceful and wit detestable.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Humility

A little in drink, but at all times your faithful husband.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Marriage, Husbands

I know of no manner of speaking so offensive as that of giving praise, and closing it with an exception.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Praise