William Congreve Quotes
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Whoever is king, is also the father of his country.
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O, she is the antidote to desire.
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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.
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Women are like tricks by sleight of hand, Which, to admire, we should not understand
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Turn pimp, flatterer, quack, lawyer, parson, be chaplain to an atheist, or stallion to an old woman, anything but a poet; for a poet is worse, more servile, timorous and fawning than any I have named.
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Courtship is to marriage, as a very witty prologue to a very dull play.
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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.
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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.
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A wit should no more be sincere, than a woman constant; one argues a decay of parts, as to other of beauty.
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'Tis well enough for a servant to be bred at an University. But the education is a little too pedantic for a gentleman.
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O fie, miss, you must not kiss and tell.
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Mr Witwould: "Pray, madam, do you pin up your hair with all your letters? I find I must keep copies." Mrs Millamant: "Only with those in verse.... I never pin up my hair with prose."
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He who closes his ears to the views of others shows little confidence in the integrity of his own views.
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Though marriage makes man and wife one flesh, it leaves 'em still two fools.
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Marriage is honourable, as you say; and if so, wherefore should Cuckoldom be a Discredit, being deriv'd from so honourable a Root?
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No mask like open truth to cover lies, As to go naked is the best disguise.
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I am a fool, I know it; and yet, Heaven help me, I'm poor enough to be a wit.
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No, I'm no enemy to learning; it hurts not me.
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Every man plays the fool once in his live, but to marry is playing the fool all one's life long.
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Blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds, and though a late, a sure reward succeeds.
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It is the business of a comic poet to paint the vices and follies of human kind.
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Music has charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak. I've read that things inanimate have moved, and, as with living souls, have been inform'd, by magic numbers and persuasive sound.
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Hannibal was a very pretty fellow in those days.
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Fear comes from uncertainty. When we are absolutely certain, whether of our worth or worthlessness, we are almost impervious to fear.
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I know a lady that loves to talk so incessantly, she won't give an echo fair play; she has that everlasting rotation of tongue that an echo must wait till she dies before it can catch her last words!
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Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd.
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There is nothing more unbecoming a man of quality than to laugh ... 'tis such a vulgar expression of the passion!
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These articles subscribed, if I continue to endure you a little longer, I may by degrees dwindle into wife.
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I confess freely to you, I could never look long upon a monkey, without very mortifying reflections.
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Some by experience find those words mis-placed: At leisure married, they repent in haste.
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