Henry Fielding (1707–54) was an English novelist. He established the genre’s inventive purpose as a massive criticism of life and culture.
Educated at Eton and Leiden, Fielding wrote numerous satirical burlesques including The Historical Register for 1736 (1737.) Such sharp political satires of Prime Minister Robert Walpole’s government provoked the introduction of censorship in England. The ensuing Licensing Act of 1737 effectively ended Fielding’s career as a dramatist.
Fielding then turned to write picaresque novels, notably Joseph Andrews (1742) and Tom Jones (1749.) The latter is considered the first undisputed masterpiece of English novels. The central character is a charming, uninhibited youthful man of fierce temper, who pursues true love through contemporary Britain in a sequence of contemptible and hilarious adventures.
In addition to his literary genius, Fielding holds a significant place in the history of law enforcement. In 1749, he used his authority as a magistrate to institute the Bow Street Runners, arguably London’s first professional police force.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Henry Fielding
We are as liable to be corrupted by books, as by companions.
—Henry Fielding
Topics: Books, Reading
Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.
—Henry Fielding
Topics: Love, Gossip
Good-breeding is not confined to externals, much less to any particular dress or attitude of the body; it is the art of pleasing or contributing as much as possible to the ease and happiness of those with whom you converse.
—Henry Fielding
The prudence of the best heads is often defeated by the tenderness of the best of hearts.
—Henry Fielding
Topics: Prudence, Kindness
Conscience—the only incorruptible thing about us.
—Henry Fielding
Topics: Conscience
There cannot be a more glorious object in creation than a human being replete with benevolence, meditating in what manner he may render himself most acceptable to the Creator by doing good to his creatures.
—Henry Fielding
Topics: Benevolence
Domestic happiness is the end of almost all our pursuits, and the common reward of all our pains.—When men find themselves forever barred from this delightful fruition they are lost to all industry, and grow careless of their worldly affairs.—Thus they become bad subjects, bad relations, bad friends, and bad men.
—Henry Fielding
Sir, money, money, the most charming of all things: money, which will say more in one moment than the most elegant lover can in years. Perhaps you will say a man is not young; I answer he is rich. He is not genteel, handsome, witty, brave, good-humored, but he is rich, rich, rich, rich, rich—that one word contradicts everything you can say against him.
—Henry Fielding
Topics: Riches, Money
When mighty roast beef was the Englishman’s food It ennobled our hearts and enriched our blood—Our soldiers were brave and our courtiers ere good. Oh! the roast beef of England. And Old England’s roast beef.
—Henry Fielding
Topics: Eating
We must eat to live, and not live to eat.
—Henry Fielding
Topics: One liners, Eating
When children are doing nothing, they are doing mischief.
—Henry Fielding
Topics: Children
The slander of some people is as great a recommendation as the praise of others.
—Henry Fielding
Topics: Slander
When widows exclaim loudly against second marriages, I would always lay a wager that the man, if not the wedding day, is absolutely fixed on.
—Henry Fielding
Topics: Marriage
Flattery is never so agreeable as to our blind side; commend a fool for his wit, or a knave for his honesty, and they will receive you into their bosoms.
—Henry Fielding
Topics: Wit, Fools, Foolishness, Flattery
Make money your God, and it will plague you like the devil.
—Henry Fielding
Topics: Money
Wine is a turncoat; first a friend and then an enemy.
—Henry Fielding
Topics: Alcoholism, One liners, Alcohol
Fraud and falsehood are his weak and treacherous allies; and he lurks trembling in the dark, dreading every ray of light, lest it should discover him, and give him up to shame and punishment.
—Henry Fielding
Topics: Guilt
The raillery which is consistent with good breeding is a gentle animal version on some foible, which, while it raises the laugh in the rest of the company, doth not put the person rallied out of countenance, or expose him to shame or contempt. On the contrary, the jest should be so delicate that the object of it should be capable of joining in the mirth it occasions.
—Henry Fielding
There is not in human nature a more odious disposition than a proneness to contempt, which is a mixture of pride and ill-nature. Nor is there any which more certainly denotes a bad disposition; for in a good and benign temper, there can be no room for it.—It is the truest symptom of a base and bad heart.
—Henry Fielding
Worth begets in base minds, envy; in great souls, emulation.
—Henry Fielding
Topics: Worth
Guilt, on the contrary, like a base thief, suspects every eye that beholds him to be privy to his transgressions, and every tongue that mentions his name to be proclaiming them.
—Henry Fielding
Topics: Guilt
As the law dissolves all contracts which are without a valuable consideration, so a valuable consideration often dissolves the law.
—Henry Fielding
Topics: Law
It hath often been said that it is not death but dying that is terrible.
—Henry Fielding
Topics: Death, Dying
O Vanity, how little is thy force acknowledged, or thy operations discerned! How wantonly dost thou deceive mankind, under different disguises!—Sometimes thou dost wear the face of pity; sometimes of generosity; nay, thou hast the assurance to put on those glorious ornaments which belong only to heroic virtue.
—Henry Fielding
Topics: Vanity
The characteristic of coquettes is affectation governed by whim.—Their life is one constant lie; and the only rule by which you can form any judgment of them, is, that they are never what they seem.
—Henry Fielding
Topics: Affectation
Riches without charity are nothing worth. They are a blessing only to him who makes them a blessing to others.
—Henry Fielding
Topics: Riches
What’s vice today may be virtue, tomorrow.
—Henry Fielding
Topics: Virtue, Vice
However exquisitely human nature may have been described by writers, the true practical system can be learned only in the world.
—Henry Fielding
Topics: Humanity, Human Nature
There is nothing a man of good sense dreads in a wife so much as her having more sense than himself.
—Henry Fielding
Topics: Common Sense
Superstition renders a man a fool, and scepticism makes him mad.
—Henry Fielding
Topics: Superstition
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