"I have found it; I have discovered the cause of all the misfortunes which befell him. A public school, Joseph, was the cause of all the calamaties which he afterwards suffered. Public schools are the nurseries of all vice and immorality."

Henry Fielding Law See all quotes by Henry Fielding →

React to this quote

More by Henry Fielding

“...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.”

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

“Thy modesty's a candle to thy merit.”

“The dignity of history.”

“There is not in the universe a more ridiculous, nor more contemptible animal, than a proud clergyman.”

“A crime, which, though perhaps not considered by law as the highest, is in truth and in fact, the blackest sin, which can contaminate the hands, or pollute the soul of man.”

Resonant Thoughts

"In the past several years, my hard work, my books which I wrote through blood and tears, and the purpose of my life all has been focused on: helping everyone to have a spring, so that everyone's heart…"

— Ba Jin

Literature1904–2005

#freedom

"The great question is, to discover not what governments prescribe, but what they ought to prescribe; for no prescription is valid against the conscience of mankind."

— John Dalberg-Acton

Literature1834–1902

#science

"Does it strike you, Mr. Keller, that we live every day in the science fiction of our youth?"

— Robert Charles Wilson

Literature1953

#science

"This is no simple reform. It really is a revolution. Sex and race, because they are easy, visible differences, have been the primary ways of organizing human beings into superior and inferior groups, …"

— Gloria Steinem

Politics1934–2026

#Human Nature