Men are not altered by their circumstances, but as they give them opportunities of exerting what they are in themselves; and a powerful clown is a tyrant in the most ugly form in which he can possibly appear.
—Richard Steele
I consider the soul of man as the ruin of a glorious pile of buildings; where, amidst great heaps of rubbish, you meet with noble fragments of sculpture, broken pillars and obelisks, and a magnificence in confusion.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Soul
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
Nothing is more silly than the pleasure some people take in “speaking their minds.” A man of this make will say a rude thing, for the mere pleasure of saying it, when an opposite behavior, full as innocent, might have preserved his friend, or made his fortune.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Speech
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
It is wonderful that so many shall entertain those with whom they converse by giving them the history of their pains and aches; and imagine such narrations their quota of the conversation. This is, of all other, the meanest help to discourse, and a man must not think at all, or think himself very insignificant when he finds an account of his headache answered by another’s asking what is the news in the last mail.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Conversation
Men of courage, men of sense, and men of letters are frequent: but a true gentleman is what one seldom sees.
—Richard Steele
It is certainly a very important lesson, to learn how to enjoy ordinary things, and to be able to relish your being, without the transport of some passion, or the gratification of some appetite.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Moderation
Of all mortals a critic is the silliest; for, inuring himself to examine all things, whether they are of consequence or not, he never looks upon anything but with a design of passing sentence upon it; by which means he is never a companion, but always a censer.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Critics
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
The insupportable labor of doing nothing.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Idleness, Laziness
Simplicity of all things is the hardest to copy.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Simplicity, Imitation
A woman seldom writes her Mind, but in her Postscript.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Letters
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
Topics: Zeal
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: Immortality, Fame
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
All a woman has to do in this world is contained within the duties of a daughter, a sister, a wife, and a mother.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Woman
Though every old man has been young, and every young one hopes to be old, there seems to be a most unnatural misunderstanding between those two stages of life. This unhappy want of commerce arises from arrogance or exultation in youth, and irrational despondence or self-pity in age.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Old Age
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
It is to be noted that when any part of this paper appears dull there is a design in it.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Design
Wisdom, valor, justice, and learning cannot keep in countenance a man that is possessed with these excellences, if he wants that inferior art of life and behavior called good breeding.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Manners
The most necessary talent in a man of conversation, which is what we ordinarily intend by a gentleman, is a good judgment. He that has this in perfection is master of his companion, without letting him see it; and has the same advantage over men of other qualifications, as one that can see would have over a blind man of ten times his strength.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Judgment
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
I know no evil so great as the abuse of the understanding, and yet there is no one vice more common.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Understanding
Fire and sword are but slow engines of destruction in comparison with the babbler.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Gossip
Our self-love is ever ready to revolt from our better judgment, and join the enemy within.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Self-love
A man advanced in years, who thinks fit to look back upon his former life, and call that only life which was passed with satisfaction and enjoyment, will find himself very young, if not in his infancy.
—Richard Steele
I cannot think of any character below the flatterer, except he who envies him.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Flattery
Among all the diseases of the mind there is not one more epidemical or more pernicious than the love of flattery.
—Richard Steele
Decency of behavior in our lives obtains the approbation of all with whom we converse, from the order, consistency, and moderation of our words and actions.
—Richard Steele
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