William Congreve Quotations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Never go to bed angry, stay up and fight.

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.

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

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.

I know that’s a secret, for it’s whispered everywhere.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Music has charms to soothe the savage beast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.

Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.

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.

Nature, to each allots his proper Sphere, But, that forsaken, we like Comets err: Toss'd thro' the Void, by some rude Shock we're broke, And all our boasted Fire is lost in Smoke

She is chaste who was never asked the question

I came upstairs into the world; for I was born in a cellar.

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

Married in haste, we may repent at leisure.

Rise to meet him in a pretty disorder - yes- O, nothing is more alluring than a levee from a couch in some confusion.

Tis well enough for a servant to be bred at an university: but the education is a little too pedantic for a gentleman.

Whom she refuses, she treats still / With so much sweet behaviour, / That her refusal, through her skill, / Looks almost like a favour.

Wife, spouse, my dear, joy, jewel, love, sweet-heart and the rest of that nauseous cant, in which men and their wives are so fulsomely familiar.

There is in true beauty something which vulgar cannot admire

Well, Sir Joseph, you have such a winning way with you.

Wou'd I were free from this restraint, Or else had hopes to win her; Wou'd she cou'd make me a saint, Or I of her a sinner

Would she could make of me a saint,Or I of her a sinner.

There are come Critics so with Spleen diseased,They scarcely come inclining to be pleased:And sure he must have more than mortal Skill,Who please one against his Will.

Where modesty's ill manners, 'tis but fitThat impudence and malice pass for wit.

Yes, but tenderness becomes me best - a sort of dyingness - you see that picture has a sort of a - ha, Foible? A swimmingness in the eyes.

Believe it, Men have ever been the same,And all the Golden Age is but a Dream.

Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life.

Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing, through the overtaking and possessing of a wish discovers the folly of the chase.

Is he then dead? / What, dead at last, quite, quite for ever dead!

Women are like tricks by light of hand, Which, to admire, we should not understand.

Women are like tricks by light of hand,Which, to admire, we should not understand.

Defer not till to-morrow to be wise, To-morrow's sun to thee may never rise

In hours of bliss we oft have met: They could not always last; And though the present I regret, I'm grateful for the past.

In hours of bliss we oft have met:They could not always last;And though the present I regret,I'm grateful for the past.

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

I hope you do not think me prone to an iteration of nuptials.

Do not keep the alabaster boxes of your love and tenderness sealed up until your friends are dead. Fill their lives with sweetness, speak cheering words while their ears can hear, and while their hearts can be thrilled and made happier by them.

You were about to tell me something, child, but you left off before you began.

A branch of one of your antediluvian families, fellows that the flood could not wash away.

I chiefly made it my own care to initiate her very infancy in the rudiments of virtue, and to impress upon her tender years a young odium and aversion to the very sight of men.

I could find it in my heart to marry thee, purely to be rid of thee.

If I have not fretted myself till I am pale again, there's no veracity in me.

If I marry, Sir Sampson, I'm for a good estate with any man, and for any man with a good estate.

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

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.

Women are like tricks by sleight of hand, Which, to admire, we should not understand

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

Marriage indeed may qualify the fury of his passion, but it very rarely mends a man's manners.

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

Women like flames have a destroying power; never to be quenched till they themselves devour.

Musick has charms to soothe a savage breast

Blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds, and though a late, a sure reward succeeds.

There is nothing more unbecoming a man of quality than to laugh ... 'tis such a vulgar expression of the passion!

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.

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

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.

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

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.

I am always of the opinion with the learned, if they speak first.

Delay not till tomorrow to be wise; tomorrow's sun to thee may neve rise.

Nothing but you can lay hold of my mind, and that can lay hold of nothing but you.

Thus in this sad, but oh, too pleasing state! my soul can fix upon nothing but thee; thee it contemplates, admires, adores, nay depends on, trusts on you alone.

A little scorn is alluring.

O, she is the antidote to desire.

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."

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

Beauty is the lover's gift.

There are times when sense may be unseasonable, as well as truth.

There are come Critics so with Spleen diseased, They scarcely come inclining to be pleased: And sure he must have more than mortal Skill, Who please one against his Will.

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!

Who pleases one against his will.

To converse with Scandal is to play at Losing Loadum, you must lose a good name to him, before you can win it for yourself.

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.

I am a fool, I know it; and yet, Heaven help me, I'm poor enough to be a wit.

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

Whoever is king, is also the father of his country.

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