Quotes from The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

20 notable lines from Henry Fielding · 1749

It is not death, but dying, which is terrible.

Henry Fielding, Tom Jones

  1. The provision, then, which we have here made is no other than Human Nature.

    Narrator, Book I, Ch. 1

  2. An author ought to consider himself, not as a gentleman who gives a private or eleemosynary treat, but rather as one who keeps a public ordinary, at which all persons are welcome for their money.

    Narrator, Book I, Ch. 1 ("Bill of Fare to the Feast")

  3. His designs were strictly honourable, as the phrase is; that is, to rob a lady of her fortune by way of marriage.

    Narrator, Book XI, Ch. 4

  4. It is much easier to make good men wise, than to make bad men good.

    Narrator, Dedication (to George Lyttelton)

  5. Every physician almost hath his favourite disease.

    Narrator, Book II, Ch. 9

  6. A newspaper consists of just the same number of words, whether there be any news in it or not.

    Henry Fielding, Tom Jones

  7. When children are doing nothing, they are doing mischief.

    Narrator, Book XV, Ch. 2

  8. Prudence and good breeding are in all companies and on all occasions, the surest guards to virtue.

    Henry Fielding, Tom Jones

  9. Comfort me by a solemn assurance, that when the little parlour in which I sit at this instant shall be reduced to a worse furnished box, I shall be read with honour by those who never knew nor saw me, and whom I shall neither know nor see.

    Narrator, Invocation, Book XIII, Ch. 1

  10. In reality, the world have paid too great a compliment to critics, and have imagined them men of much greater profundity than they really are.

    Narrator, Book V, Ch. 1

  11. No one hath seen beauty in its highest lustre who hath never seen it in distress.

    Narrator, on Sophia

  12. Thwackum was for doing justice, and leaving mercy to heaven.

    Narrator, Book III, Ch. 10

  13. 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.

    Narrator, Book I, Ch. 6

  14. To say the truth, in a court of justice drunkenness must not be an excuse, yet in a court of conscience it is greatly so.

    Narrator, Book V, Ch. 10

  15. At last the ocean, that hospitable friend to the wretched, opened her capacious arms to receive him.

    Narrator, Book VII, Ch. 2

  16. Hairbreadth missings of happiness look like the insults of Fortune.

    Narrator, Book XIII, Ch. 2

  17. I am convinced, my child, that you have much goodness, generosity and honour in your temper; if you will add prudence and religion to these, you must be happy: for the three former qualities, I admit, make you worthy of happiness, but they are the latter only which will put you in possession of it.

    Mr. Allworthy to Tom

  18. We have got the dog-fox, I warrant the bitch is not far off.

    Squire Western

  19. Can any man have a higher notion of the rule of right and the eternal fitness of things?

    Square the philosopher, Book IV, Ch. 4