68 quotes
A comic writer should of all others be the least excused for deviating from nature, since it may not be always so easy for a serious poet to meet with the great and the admirable; but life every where furnishes an accurate observer with the ridiculous.
Joseph Andrews (1742)
To sun myself in Huncamunca's eyes.
Tom Thumb the Great (1730)
We must eat to live and live to eat.
The Miser (1733)
. . . for nothing can be more reasonable, than that slaves and flatterers should exact the same taxes on all below them, which they themselves pay to all above them.
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749)
Much may be said on both sides.
The Covent Garden Tragedy (1732)
The only source of the true Ridiculous (as it appears to me) is affectation
Joseph Andrews (1742)
...the excellence of the mental entertainment consists less in the subject than in the author's skill in well dressing it up.
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749)
Oh, the roast beef of England,
And old England's roast beef!
The Grub Street Opera (1731)
Our Soldiers were brave, and our Courtiers were good.
Yes, I had two strings to my bow; both golden ones, egad! and both cracked.
This story will never go down.
Lo, when two dogs are fighting in the streets,
With a third dog one of the two dogs meets;
With angry teeth he bites him to the bone,
And this dog smarts for what that dog has done.
Tom Thumb the Great (1730)
There cannot be a more glorious object in creation than a human being replete with benevolence, meditating in what manner he might render himself most acceptable to his Creator by doing most good to His creatures.
To speak a bold truth, I am, after much mature deliberation, inclined to suspect that the public voice hath, in all ages, done much injustice to Fortune, and hath convicted her of many facts in which she had not the least concern.
Amelia (1751)
I hate all Scholars, Beaus, and Squires;
Pimps, Puppies, Parasites, and Liars.
All Courtiers, with their Looks so smooth;
And Players, from Boheme to Booth.
The same animal which hath the honour to have some part of his flesh eaten at the table of a duke, may perhaps be degraded in another part, and some of his limbs gibbeted, as it were, in the vilest stall in town.
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749)
The blackest ink of fate was sure my lot,
And when fate writ my name it made a blot.
Penny saved is a penny got.
The Miser (1733)
This story will not go down.
Enough is equal to a feast.
The Covent Garden Tragedy (1732)