Playwright Quotes

William Shakespeare

Miguel de Cervantes

Anton Chekhov

Bertolt Brecht

George Bernard Shaw

Henrik Ibsen

Terence

Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor.

Sholem Aleichem

I am human: nothing human is alien to me.

In Latin: Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto.

Most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people.

Adrian Mitchell

Most critical fault-finding, when reduced to its essentials, simply amounts to reproach of the author because he is himself -- thinks, feels, sees, and creates, as himself, instead of seeing and creating in the way the critic would have done.

Thou art the cause, and most accursed effect.

William Shakespeare

He plants trees to benefit another generation.

Caecilius Statius

In short, virtue cannot live where envy reigns, nor liberality subsist with niggardliness.

Miguel de Cervantes

Everyone chases after happiness, not noticing that happiness is at their heels.

You can pretend to be serious but you can't pretend to be witty.

He who talks much cannot always talk well.

A woman is fascinated not by art but by the noise made by those in the field.

Those whom we called brutes had their revenge when Darwin showed us that they were our cousins.

George Bernard Shaw

There's only us, there's only this. Forget regret, or life is yours to miss. No other road, no other way. No day but today!

Jonathan Larson

We shall not have succeeded in demolishing everything unless we demolish the ruins as well. But the only way I can see of doing that is to use them to put up a lot of fine, well-designed buildings.

Misery's fine - as long as you know you can get out of it when you want to.

You're a grand old flag;
You're a high-flying flag.
And forever in peace may you wave.

George M. Cohan

Our lives are not totally random. We make commitments, we cause things to happen.

Wendy Wasserstein

Good friends in hard times and hard friends in good times.

Well, every one for himself, and Providence for us all—as the elephant said when he danced among the chickens.

She's adorned
Amply that in her husband's eye looks lovely,—
The truest mirror that an honest wife
Can see her beauty in.

The duty of a scientist is not to distort the manifestations of natural phenomena in the light of some more or less popular idea. His duty is to explain facts.

Émile Cammaerts

A quack is as fit for a pimp as a midwife for a bawd: they are still but in their way, both helpers of nature.

William Wycherley

You see I learnt at an early age what it was to be angry - angry and helpless. And I can never forget it. I knew more about - love... betrayal... and death, when I was ten years old than you will probably ever know in your life.

Wood to La. Vaine. "Tis true, Madame, Sir Positive and Poet Ninny are excellent men, and brave Bully-Rocks; but they must grant, that neither of e'm understand Mathematics but myself.

Thomas Shadwell

I thought I was doing my duty for my country. I didn't know I was going to be treated like a convict. Did it make better soldiers of the callow youths we were then? I doubt it.