William Congreve Quotes
I am a fool, I know it; and yet, Heaven help me, I'm poor enough to be a wit.
William Congreve
Quotes to Explore
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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.
William Congreve
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No mask like open truth to cover lies, As to go naked is the best disguise.
William Congreve
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Women are like tricks by sleight of hand, Which, to admire, we should not understand
William Congreve
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A hungry wolf at all the herd will run, In hopes, through many, to make sure of one.
William Congreve
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They come together like the Coroner's Inquest, to sit upon the murdered reputations of the week.
William Congreve
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O, she is the antidote to desire.
William Congreve
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Marriage indeed may qualify the fury of his passion, but it very rarely mends a man's manners.
William Congreve
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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
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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!
William Congreve
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Thou art a retailer of phrases, and dost deal in remnants of remnants.
William Congreve
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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?
William Congreve
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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."
William Congreve
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Music alone with sudden charms can bind The wand'ring sense, and calm the troubled mind.
William Congreve
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Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd.
William Congreve
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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
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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
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O, nothing is more alluring than a levee from a couch in some confusion.
William Congreve
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She once used me with that insolence, that in revenge I took her to pieces; sifted her, and separated her failings; I studied 'em, and got 'em by rote. The catalogue was so large, that I was not without hopes, one day or other to hate her heartily.
William Congreve
