Quotes By William Congreve

No, I'm no enemy to learning; it hurts not me.

Come, come, leave business to idlers, and wisdom to fools: they have need of 'em: wit be my faculty, and pleasure my occupation, and let father Time shake his glass.

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

Wit must be foiled by wit: cut a diamond with a diamond.

Invention flags, his brain goes muddy, and black despair succeeds brown study.

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

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.

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

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

If this be not love, it is madness, and then it is pardonable.

Beauty is the lover's gift.

A hungry wolf at all the herd will run, In hopes, through many, to make sure of one.

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

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.

Courtship is to marriage, as a very witty prologue to a very dull play.

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.

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

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

'Tis well enough for a servant to be bred at an University. But the education is a little too pedantic for a gentleman.

You are a woman: you must never speak what you think; your words must contradict your thoughts, but your actions may contradict your words.

He who closes his ears to the views of others shows little confidence in the integrity of his own views.

They are at the end of the gallery; retired to their tea and scandal, according to their ancient custom.

Music has charms to sooth a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.

Never go to bed angry, stay up and fight.

A wit should be no more sincere than a woman constant.

I find we are growing serious, and then we are in great danger of being dull.

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.

Fear comes from uncertainty. When we are absolutely certain, whether of our worth or worthlessness, we are almost impervious to fear.

Grief walks upon the heels of pleasure; married in haste, we repent at leisure.

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