William congreve quotes

If this be not love, it is madness, and then it is pardonable.

Words are the weak support of cold indifference; love has no language to be heard.

They are at the end of the gallery; retired to their tea and scandal, according to their ancient custom.

I am always of the opinion with the learned, if they speak first.

Music has charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak. I've read that things inanimate have moved, and, as with living souls, have been inform'd, by magic numbers and persuasive sound.

Marriage is honourable, as you say; and if so, wherefore should Cuckoldom be a Discredit, being deriv'd from so honourable a Root?

A wit should no more be sincere, than a woman constant; one argues a decay of parts, as to other of beauty.

She likes herself, yet others hates, For that which in herself she prizes; And while she laughs at them, forgets She is the thing that she despises.

Blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds, and though a late, a sure reward succeeds.

To find a young fellow that is neither a wit in his own eye, nor a fool in the eye of the world, is a very hard task.

Every man plays the fool once in his live, but to marry is playing the fool all one's life long.

No mask like open truth to cover lies, As to go naked is the best disguise.

You are a woman: you must never speak what you think; your words must contradict your thoughts, but your actions may contradict your words.

He who closes his ears to the views of others shows little confidence in the integrity of his own views.

Wit must be foiled by wit: cut a diamond with a diamond.

To converse with Scandal is to play at Losing Loadum, you must lose a good name to him, before you can win it for yourself.

If there's delight in love, 'Tis when I see that heart, which others bleed for, bleed for me.

O fie, miss, you must not kiss and tell.

Courtship is to marriage, as a very witty prologue to a very dull play.

Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd.

Who pleases one against his will.

I know a lady that loves to talk so incessantly, she won't give an echo fair play; she has that everlasting rotation of tongue that an echo must wait till she dies before it can catch her last words!

Love's but the frailty of the mind, When 'tis not with ambition joined; A sickly flame, which if not fed expires; And feeding, wastes in self-consuming fires.

Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast...

Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing.

It is the business of a comic poet to paint the vices and follies of human kind.

Music has charms to sooth a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.

She once used me with that insolence, that in revenge I took her to pieces; sifted her, and separated her failings; I studied 'em, and got 'em by rote. The catalogue was so large, that I was not without hopes, one day or other to hate her heartily.

Men are apt to offend ('tis true) where they find most goodness to forgive.

I am a fool, I know it; and yet, Heaven help me, I'm poor enough to be a wit.

I always take blushing either for a sign of guilt, or of ill breeding.

Some by experience find those words mis-placed: At leisure married, they repent in haste.

Come, come, leave business to idlers, and wisdom to fools: they have need of 'em: wit be my faculty, and pleasure my occupation, and let father Time shake his glass.

Delay not till tomorrow to be wise; tomorrow's sun to thee may neve rise.

I hope you do not think me prone to any iteration of nuptials.

I nauseate walking; 'tis a country diversion, I loathe the country.

I know that’s a secret, for it’s whispered everywhere.

Mr Witwould: "Pray, madam, do you pin up your hair with all your letters? I find I must keep copies." Mrs Millamant: "Only with those in verse.... I never pin up my hair with prose."

Say what you will, 'tis better to be left than never to have been loved.

Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure; Married in haste, we may repent at leisure.

Hannibal was a very pretty fellow in those days.

Women are like tricks by sleight of hand, Which, to admire, we should not understand

If happiness in self-content is placed, The wise are wretched, and fools only blessed.

Invention flags, his brain goes muddy, And black despair succeeds brown study.

Thus in this sad, but oh, too pleasing state! my soul can fix upon nothing but thee; thee it contemplates, admires, adores, nay depends on, trusts on you alone.

Whoever is king, is also the father of his country.

All well bred persons lie - Besides, you are a woman; you must never speak what you think.

There are times when sense may be unseasonable, as well as truth.

Thou art a retailer of phrases, and dost deal in remnants of remnants.

There are come Critics so with Spleen diseased, They scarcely come inclining to be pleased: And sure he must have more than mortal Skill, Who please one against his Will.

A woman only obliges a man to secrecy, that she may have the pleasure of telling herself.

In my conscience I believe the baggage loves me, for she never speaks well of me herself, nor suffers any body else to rail at me.

I find we are growing serious, and then we are in great danger of being dull.

Music alone with sudden charms can bind The wand'ring sense, and calm the troubled mind.

There is in true Beauty, as in Courage, somewhat which narrow Souls cannot dare to admire.

'Tis well enough for a servant to be bred at an University. But the education is a little too pedantic for a gentleman.

Marriage indeed may qualify the fury of his passion, but it very rarely mends a man's manners.

O ay, letters - I had letters - I am persecuted with letters - I hate letters - nobody knows how to write letters; and yet one has 'em, one does not know why - they serve one to pin up one's hair.

Love's but a frailty of the mind, When 'tis not with ambition joined.

How hard a thing 'twould be to please you all.

These articles subscribed, if I continue to endure you a little longer, I may by degrees dwindle into wife.

Honor is a public enemy, and conscience a domestic, and he that would secure his pleasure, must pay a tribute to one and go halves with t'other.

Let us be very strange and well-bred:Let us be as strange as if we had been married a great while;And as well-bred as if we were not married at all.

I confess freely to you, I could never look long upon a monkey, without very mortifying reflections.

Beauty is the lover's gift.

No, I'm no enemy to learning; it hurts not me.

Would any thing but a madman complain of uncertainty? Uncertainty and expectation are joys of life; security is an insipid thing; and the overtaking and possessing of a wish discovers the folly of the chase.

He that first cries out stop thief, is often he that has stolen the treasure.

Nothing but you can lay hold of my mind, and that can lay hold of nothing but you.

A little scorn is alluring.

Turn pimp, flatterer, quack, lawyer, parson, be chaplain to an atheist, or stallion to an old woman, anything but a poet; for a poet is worse, more servile, timorous and fawning than any I have named.

Fear comes from uncertainty. When we are absolutely certain, whether of our worth or worthlessness, we are almost impervious to fear.

I came up stairs into the world, for I was born in a cellar.

Though marriage makes man and wife one flesh, it leaves 'em still two fools.

O, nothing is more alluring than a levee from a couch in some confusion.

There is nothing more unbecoming a man of quality than to laugh ... 'tis such a vulgar expression of the passion!

One minute gives invention to destroy; What to rebuild, will a whole age employ.

Guilt is ever at a loss, and confusion waits upon it; when innocence and bold truth are always ready for expression.

Defer not till to-morrow to be wise, To-morrow's Sun to thee may never rise; Or should to-morrow chance to cheer thy sight With her enlivening and unlook'd for light, How grateful will appear her dawning rays! As favours unexpected doubly please.

O, she is the antidote to desire.

Women like flames have a destroying power; never to be quenched till they themselves devour.

But say what you will, 'tis better to be left than never to have been loved. To pass our youth in dull indifference, to refuse the sweets of life because they once must leave us, is as preposterous as to wish to have been born old, because we one day must be old.

A hungry wolf at all the herd will run, In hopes, through many, to make sure of one.

They come together like the Coroner's Inquest, to sit upon the murdered reputations of the week.