Richard Steele was an 18th century Irish dramatist. He was co-founder and editor of the magazine The Spectator.
He was a Whig Member of Parliament, and King George I knighted him giving him the responsibility of running the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London.
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The finest woman in nature should not detain me an hour from you; but you must sometimes suffer the rivalship of the wisest men.
Letter to his wife
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Still an excuse used today?
I was going home two hours ago, but was met by Mr. Griffith, who has kept me ever since. I will come within a pint of wine. Letter to his wife
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A little in drink, but at all times your faithful husband. Letter to his wife
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The alternative quote for this is;
Fire and swords are slow engines of destruction, in comparison with the babbler.
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Nothing can atone for the lack of modesty; without which beauty is ungraceful and wit detestable.
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The good husband keeps his wife in the wholesome ignorance of unnecessary secrets. They will not be starved with the ignorance, who perchance may surfeit with the knowledge of weighty counsels, too heavy for the weaker sex to bear. He knows little who will tell his wife all he knows.
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Such is the weakness of our nature, that when men are a little exalted in their condition they immediately conceive they have additional senses, and their capacities enlarged not only above other men, but above human comprehension itself.
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Each successive generation plunges into the abyss of passion, without the slightest regard to the fatal effects which such contract has produced upon their predecessors; and lament, when too late, the rashness with which they slighted the advice of experience, and stifled the voice of reason.
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