Richard Brinsley Sheridan Quotes

LADY TEAZLE. Sir Peter — Sir Peter you — may scold or smile, according to your Humour[,] but I ought to have my own way in everything, and what’s more I will too — what! tho’ I was educated in the country I know very well that women of Fashion in London are accountable to nobody after they are married. SIR PETER. Very well! ma’am very well! so a husband is to have no influence, no authority? LADY TEAZLE. Authority! no, to be sure — if you wanted authority over me, you should have adopted me and not married me[:] I am sure you were old enough.

Egad, I think the interpreter is the hardest to be understood of the two!

You write with ease, to show your breeding,
But easy writing's curst hard reading.

There's no possibility of being witty without a little ill-nature.

I am compliance itself — when I am not thwarted; — no one more easily led — when I have my own way.

... if Charles is undone, he'll find half his acquaintance ruined too, and that, you know, is a consolation.

MARIA. For my Part — I own madam — wit loses its respect with me, when I see it in company with malice. —

He is the very pineapple of politeness!

LADY TEAZLE. O to be sure she has herself the oddest countenance that ever was seen — ’tis a collection of Features from all the different Countries of the globe. SIR BENJAMIN. So she has indeed — an Irish Front — — CRABTREE. Caledonian Locks — — SIR BENJAMIN. Dutch Nose — — CRABTREE. Austrian Lips — — SIR BENJAMIN. Complexion of a Spaniard — — CRABTREE. And Teeth a la Chinoise — — SIR BENJAMIN. In short, her Face resembles a table d’hote at Spa — where no two guests are of a nation — — CRABTREE. Or a Congress at the close of a general War — wherein all the members even to her eyes appear to have a different interest and her Nose and Chin are the only Parties likely to join issue.

Alas! the devil's sooner raised than laid.

MARIA. Well I’ll not debate how far Scandal may be allowable — but in a man I am sure it is always contemtable. — We have Pride, envy, Rivalship, and a Thousand motives to depreciate each other — but the male-slanderer must have the cowardice of a woman before He can traduce one.

PETER. Egad — and so we must — that’s impossible. Ah! Master Rowley when an old Batchelor marries a young wife — He deserves — no the crime carries the Punishment along with it.

Won’t you come into the garden? I would like my roses to see you.

The Right Honourable gentleman is indebted to his memory for his jests, and to his imagination for his facts.

A man may surely be allowed to take a glass of wine by his own fireside.