Aphra Behn Quotes

23 Sourced Quotes

Love ceases to be a pleasure when it ceases to be a secret.

Aphra Behn
One hour of right-down love is worth an age of dully living on.

Aphra Behn
He that knew all that ever Learning writ,
Knew only this - that he knew nothing yet.

Aphra Behn
Faith, sir, we are here today, and gone tomorrow.

Aphra Behn
Nothing is more capable of troubling our reason, and consuming our health, than secret notions of jealousy in solitude.

Aphra Behn
Money speaks sense in a language all nations understand.

Aphra Behn
Each moment of the happy lover's hour is worth an age of dull and common life.

Aphra Behn
He that will live in this World, must be endu'd with the three rare Qualities of Dissimulation, Equivocation, and mental Reservation.

Aphra Behn
Love's a thin Diet, nor will keep out Cold.

Aphra Behn
Time lessens all extremes and reduces 'em to mediums and unconcern...

Aphra Behn
'Twas but a dream, yet by my heart I knew, Which still was panting, part of it was true: Oh how I strove the rest to have believed; Ashamed and angry to be undeceived!

Aphra Behn
Do you not daily see fine clothes, rich furniture, jewels and plate are more inviting than beauty unadorned?

Aphra Behn
…that perfect Tranquillity of Life, which is no where to be found, but in retreat, a faithful Friend and a good Library…

Aphra Behn
I think a Play the best divertisement that wise men have: but I do also think them nothing so who do discourse so formallie about the rules of it, as if 'twere the grand affair of humane life.

Aphra Behn
Here lies a Proof that Wit can never be Defence enough against Mortality

Aphra Behn
All I ask, is the privilege for my masculine part the poet in me…If I must not, because of my sex, have this freedom…I lay down my quill, and you shall hear no more of me.

Aphra Behn
As love is the most noble and divine passion of the soul, so is it that to which we may justly attribute all the real satisfactions of life, and without it, man is unfinished, and unhappy.

Aphra Behn
Patience is a flatterer, sir — and an ass, sir.

Aphra Behn
Affectation hath always had a greater share both in the action and discourse of men than truth and judgment have...

Aphra Behn
Since man with that inconstancy was born,
To love the absent, and the present scorn,
Why do we deck, why do we dress
For such a short-lived happiness?
Why do we put attraction on,
Since either way 'tis we must be undone?

Aphra Behn
Oh what a dear ravishing thing is the beginning of an Amour!

Aphra Behn
A brave world, sir, full of religion, knavery, and change: we shall shortly see better days.

Aphra Behn
A poet is a painter in his way, he draws to the life, but in another kind; we draw the nobler part, the soul and the mind; the pictures of the pen shall outlast those of the pencil, and even worlds themselves.

Aphra Behn