William Congreve Quotes

76 Sourced Quotes

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.

William Congreve
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.

William Congreve
Baboons and apes ridiculous we find; For what? For ill resembling Human-kind.

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

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

William Congreve
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.

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

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

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

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

William Congreve
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.

William Congreve
Don't let us be familiar or fond, nor kiss before folks, like my Lady Fadler and Sir Francis…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.

William Congreve
Defer not till tomorrow to be wise,
Tomorrow's sun to thee may never rise.

William Congreve
Retired to their tea and scandal, according to their ancient custom.

William Congreve
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.

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

William Congreve
There is in true beauty, as in courage, somewhat which narrow souls cannot dare to admire.

William Congreve
Sharper: Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure:
Married in haste, we may repent at leisure.
Setter: Some by experience find those words mis-placed:
At leisure married, they repent in haste.

William Congreve
Ah! Whither, whither shall I fly,
A poor unhappy Maid;
To hopeless Love and Misery
By my own Heart betray'd?

William Congreve
Ferdinand Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the first magnitude.

William Congreve
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.

William Congreve
Careless she is with artful care,
Affecting to seem unaffected.

William Congreve
I know that's a secret, for it's whispered every where.

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

William Congreve
For blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds,
And though a late, a sure reward succeeds.

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

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

William Congreve
Here she comes i' faith full sail, with her fan spread and streamers out, and a shoal of fools for tenders. — Ha, no, I cry her mercy!

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

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

William Congreve