The Vicar of Wakefield

I love everything that is old; old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wines.

I armed her against the censure of the world, showed her that books were sweet unreproaching companions to the miserable, and that if they could not bring us to enjoy life, they would at least teach us to endure it.

Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse.

law grinds the poor, rich men rule the law

As the reputation of books is raised not by their freedom from defect, but the greatness of their beauties, so should that of men be prized not for their exemption from fault, but the size of those virtues they are possessed of.

…The more enormous our wealth, the more extensive our fears, all our possessions are paled up with new edicts every day, and hung round with gibbets to scare every invader.

The nakedness of the indignant world may be cloathed from the trimmings of the vain.

What we place most hopes upon, generally proves most fatal.

I have known many of those pretended champions for liberty in my time, yet do I not remember one that was not in his heart and in his family a tyrant.

The beast retires to it's shelter, and the bird flies to it's nest; but the helpless man can only find refuge in his fellow creature.

At this he laughed, and so did we: the jests of the rich are ever successful.

That virtue which requires to be ever guarded is scarce worth the sentinel.

We are not to judge of the feelings of others by what we might feel if in their place. However dark the habitation of the mole to our eyes, yet the animal itself finds the apartment sufficiently lightsome.

the laws govern the poor, and the rich govern the law

Now, Sir, for my own part, as I naturally hate the face of a tyrant, the farther off he is removed from me, the better pleased am I. The generality of mankind also are of my way of thinking, and have unanimously created one king, whose election at once diminishes the number of tyrants, and puts tyranny at the greatest distance from the greatest number of people.

My friends, my children, and fellow sufferers, when I reflect on the distribution of good and evil here below, I find that much has been given man to enjoy, yet still more to suffer. Though we should examine the whole world, we shall not find one man so happy as to have nothing left to wish for; but we daily see thousands who by suicide shew us they have nothing left to hope. In this life then it appears that we cannot be entirely blest; but yet we may be completely miserable!

Premature consolation is but the remembrancer of sorrow.