William Congreve - The Way of the World (1700)

17 Sourced Quotes

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

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

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

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

William Congreve
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.

William Congreve
Thou art a retailer of phrases, and dost deal in remnants of remnants, like a maker of pincushions; thou art in truth (metaphorically speaking) a speaker of shorthand.

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

William Congreve
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.

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

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

William Congreve
Witwoud: Madam, do you pin up your hair with all your letters?
Millamant: Only with those in verse, Mr. Witwoud. I never pin up my hair with prose.

William Congreve
A little disdain is not amiss; a little scorn is alluring.

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

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
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
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