William Congreve Quotes

Thou art a retailer of phrases, and dost deal in remnants of remnants, like a maker of pincushions; thou art in truth (metaphorically speaking) a speaker of shorthand.

Of those few fools, who with ill stars are curst,
Sure scribbling fools, called poets, fare the worst:
For they're a sort of fools which fortune makes,
And, after she has made them fools, forsakes.
With Nature's oafs 'tis quite a different case,
For Fortune favours all her idiot race.
In her own nest the cuckoo eggs we find,
Over which she broods to hatch the changeling kind:
No portion for her own she has to spare,
So much she dotes on her adopted care.
Poets are bubbles, by the town drawn in,
Suffered at first some trifling stakes to win:
But what unequal hazards do they run!
Each time they write they venture all they've won:
The Squire that's buttered still, is sure to be undone.
This author, heretofore, has found your favour,
But pleads no merit from his past behaviour.
To build on that might prove a vain presumption,
Should grant to poets made admit resumption,
And in Parnassus he must lose his seat,
If that be found a forfeited estate.

Men are apt to offend ('tis true) where they find most goodness to forgive.

Vile and ingrate! too late thou shalt repent
The base Injustice thou hast done my Love:
Yes, thou shalt know, spite of thy past Distress,
And all those Ills which thou so long hast mourn'd;
Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd, Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd.

Well, I shall understand your lingo one of these days, cousin.

Heav'n hath no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd,
Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd.

Ah! Whither, whither shall I fly,
A poor unhappy Maid;
To hopeless Love and Misery
By my own Heart betray’d?

Eternity was in that moment.

O, nothing is more alluring than a levee from a couch in some confusion: it shows the foot to advantage, and furnishes with blushes, and recomposing airs beyond comparison. — Lady Wishfort

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.

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

For blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds, And though late, a sure reward succeeds.

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

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

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

(quoted in Life After Life)