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
There is nothing that wears out a fine face like the vigils of the card-table, and those cutting passions which naturally attend them. Hollow eyes, haggard looks, and pale complexions are the natural indications of a female gamester. Her morning sleeps are not able to repay her midnight watchings.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Gambling
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
It is to be noted that when any part of this paper appears dull there is a design in it.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Design
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 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
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
A modest person seldom fails to gain the good will of those he converses with, because nobody envies a man who does not appear to be pleased with himself.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Modesty
The highest point of good-breeding is to show a very nice regard to your own dignity, and with that in your own heart, to express your value for the man above you.
—Richard Steele
To have good sense and ability to express it are the most essential and necessary qualities in companions. When thoughts rise in us fit to utter among familiar friends, there needs but very little care in clothing them.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Style
It is not only paying wages, and giving commands, that constitute a master of a family; but prudence, equal behavior, with a readiness to protect and cherish them, is what entitles man to that character in their very hearts and sentiments.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Family, Master
Praise from an enemy is the most pleasing of all commendations.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Praise
Men spend their lives in the service of their passions, instead of employing their passions in the service of their life.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Passion
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: Flattery, Praise
Zeal for the public good is the characteristic of a man of honor and a gentleman, and must take the place of pleasures, profits, and all other private gratifications.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Public, Service, Zeal
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
Age in a virtuous person, of either sex, carries in it an authority which makes it preferable to all the pleasures of youth.
—Richard Steele
I have often lamented that we cannot close our ears with as much ease as we can our eyes.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Silence
Vanity makes men ridiculous, pride odious, and ambition terrible.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Vanity
Our self-love is ever ready to revolt from our better judgment, and join the enemy within.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Self-love
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
Of all the affections which attend human life, the love of glory is the most ardent.
—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
Topics: Lying
Among all the diseases of the mind there is not one more epidemical or more pernicious than the love of flattery.
—Richard Steele
Conversation never sits easier than when we now and then discharge ourselves in a symphony of laughter; which may not improperly be called the chorus of conversation.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Laughter
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 know no evil so great as the abuse of the understanding, and yet there is no one vice more common.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Understanding
There is a kind of sympathy in souls that fits them for each other; and we may be assured when we see two persons engaged in the warmths of a mutual affection, that there are certain qualities in both their minds which bear a resemblance to one another.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Sympathy
I know of no manner of speaking so offensive as that of giving praise, and closing it with an exception.
—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
Equality is the life of conversation; and he is as much out who assumes to himself any part above another, as he who considers himself below the rest of society.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Equality
A favor well bestowed is almost as great an honor to him who confers it as to him who receives it.
—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
Though her (Lady Elizabeth Hastings) mien carries much more invitation than command, to behold her is an immediate check to loose behavior; to love her was a liberal education.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Influence, Women
When one has no design but to speak plain truth, he may say a great deal in a very narrow compass.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Brevity, Truth
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
Simplicity of all things is the hardest to copy.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Imitation, Simplicity
Nothing can atone for the lack of modesty; without which beauty is ungraceful and wit detestable.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Modesty, Humility
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
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
A woman seldom writes her Mind, but in her Postscript.
—Richard Steele
Topics: Letters
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