William Congreve Quotes

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

(quoted in Life After Life)

True, 'tis an unhappy circumstance of life that love should ever die before us, and that the man so often should outlive the lover. 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. For my part, my youth may wear and waste, but it shall never rust in my possession.

Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure; Married in haste, we may repent at leisure.

Why will mankind be fools, and be deceived? And why are friends’ and lovers’ oaths believed; When each, who searches strictly his own mind, May so much fraud and power of baseness find?

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

A little scorn is alluring.

Retired to their tea and scandal, according to their ancient custom.

Music has charms to soothe the savage beast.

O, she is the antidote to desire.

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

I warrant you, if he danced till doomsday, he thought I was to pay the piper.

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.

All well bred persons lie – Besides, you are a woman; you must never speak what you think…

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

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