Richard Brinsley Sheridan Quotes

81 Sourced Quotes

The right honorable gentleman is indebted to his memory for his jests, and to his imagination for his facts.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Conscience has no more to do with gallantry than it has with politics.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Ay, ay, the best terms will grow obsolete: damns have had their day.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
'Tis safest in matrimony to begin with a little aversion.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
The number of those who undergo the fatigue of judging for themselves is very small indeed.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Nothing keeps me in such awe as perfect beauty; now, there is something consoling and encouraging in ugliness.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
A practitioner in panegyric, or, to speak more plainly, a professor of the art of puffing.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Date not the life which thou hast run by the mean of reckoning of the hours and days, which though hast breathed: a life spent worthily should be measured by a nobler line, — by deeds, not years...

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Here's to the maiden of bashful fifteen;
Here's to the widow of fifty;
Here's to the flaunting, extravagant queen,
And here's to the housewife that's thrifty.
Let the toast pass —
Drink to the lass;
I'll warrant she'll prove an excuse for the glass.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Tale-bearers are as bad as the tale-makers.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
I would by no means wish a daughter of mine to be a progeny of learning.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Many a wretch has rid on a hurdle who has done less mischief than utterers of forged tales, coiners of scandal, and clippers of reputation.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
The art of the physician consists, in a great measure, in exciting hope, and other friendly passions and feelings.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
There is nothing on earth so easy as to forget, if a person chooses to set about it. I'm sure I have as much forgot your poor, dear uncle, as if he had never existed; and I thought it my duty to do so.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
There needs no small degree of address to gain the reputation of benevolence without incurring the expense.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Do thou snatch treasures from my lips, and I'll take kingdoms back from thine.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
The silver ore of pure charity is an expensive article in the catalogue of a man's good qualities.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
If it is abuse,—why one is always sure to hear of it from one damned goodnatured friend or another!

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
I'm called away by particular business—but I leave my character behind me.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
An apothecary should never be out of spirits.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
The quarrel is a very pretty quarrel as it stands; we should only spoil it by trying to explain it.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
You're our enemy; lead the way, and we 'll precede.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
A fluent tongue is the only thing a mother don't like her daughter to resemble her in.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
The Spanish fleet thou canst not see, because—it is not yet in sight!

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
She's as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile.
Mrs Malaprop speaking

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Rowley: I believe there is no sentiment he has more faith in as that 'Charity begins at home'.
Sir Oliver Surface: And his I presume is of that domestic sort which never stirs abroad at all.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Where they do agree on the stage, their unanimity is wonderful.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Egad, I think the interpreter is the hardest to be understood of the two!

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
I wish, sir, you would practice this without me. I can't stay dying here all night.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
You shall see them on a beautiful quarto page, where a neat rivulet of text shall meander through a meadow of margin.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan