“Compassion does not only refine and civilize human nature, but has something in it more pleasing and agreeable, than what can be met with in such an indolent happiness, such an indifference to mankind, as that in which the stoics placed their wisdom. As love is the most delightful passion, pity is nothing else but love softened by a degree of sorrow: In short, it is a kind of pleasing anguish, anguish as well as generous sympathy, that knits mankind together, and blends them in the same common lot.”
Quote by Richard Steele
“It has been a sort of maxim, that the greatest art is to conceal art; but I know not how, among some people we meet with, their greatest cunning is to appear cunning.”
Source: Tatler and Guardian
“It may be remarked in general, that the laugh of men of wit is for the most part but a feint, constrained kind of half-laugh, as such persons are never without some diffidence about them; but that of fools is the most honest, natural, open laugh in the world.”
Source: The Guardian, with Notes, and General Indexes: Complete in One Volume
“A modest person seldom fails to gain the goodwill of those he converses with, because nobody envies a man who does not appear to be pleased with himself.”
Source: The Guardian: With a Biographical, Historical, and Critical Preface by the Rev. Rob. Lynam
“Modesty never rages, never murmurs, never pouts; when it is ill-treated, it pines, it beseeches, it languishes.”
Source: The Tatler; or, Lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq
“Of all the affections which attend human life, the love of glory is the most ardent.”
Source: The Spectator: with sketches of the lives of the authors, an index, and explanatory notes
“A man cannot have an idea of perfection in another, which he was never sensible of in himself.”
Source: The Lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq: Revised and Corrected by the Author. ...
“Tis immortality to die aspiring.”
Source: The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles Duke of Byron
“Man is a torch borne in the wind; a dream But of a shadow, summed with all his substance.”
“Poetry, unlike oratory, should not aim at clarity... but be dense with meaning, 'something to be chewed and digested'.”
“And for the authentical truth of either person or actions, who (worth the respecting) will expect it in a poem, whose subject is not truth, but things like truth? Poor envious souls they are that cavil at truth's want in these natural fictions; material instruction, elegant and sententious excitation to virtue, and deflection from her contrary, being the soul, limbs, and limits of an authentical tragedy.”
Source: The Works of George Chapman: Plays
