William Congreve > Quotes

“Say what you will, ’tis better to be left than never to have been loved.”
― William Congreve

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

“Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.”
― William Congreve

“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, The Way of the World

“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”
― William Congreve

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

“Music hath charms to sooth a savage breast.”
― William Congreve, The Mourning Bride

“Women are like tricks by sleight of hand,
Which, to admire, we should not understand”
― WILLIAM CONGREVE

“Nothing but you can lay hold of my mind, and that can lay hold of nothing but you.”
― William Congreve

“A little scorn is alluring. ”
― William Congreve

“One no more owes one's beauty to a lover than one's wit to an echo”
― william congreve, The Way of the World

“I came up stairs into the world, for I was born in a cellar.”
― William Congreve

“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.”
― William Congreve

“You'll grow devilish fat upon this paper-diet!”
― William Congreve

“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.”
― William Congreve, The Way of the World

“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.”
― William Congreve

“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.”
― William Congreve, The Way of the World

“All well bred persons lie – Besides, you are a woman; you must never speak what you think…”
― William Congreve, Love for Love

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

(quoted in Life After Life)”
― William Congreve

“For blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds, And though late, a sure reward succeeds.”
― William Congreve

“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.”
― William Congreve

“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?”
― William Congreve, The Double Dealer

“He who closes his ears to the views of others shows little confidence in the integrity of his own views.”
― William Congreve

“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”
― Congreve

“One minute gives invention to destroy, What, to rebuild, will a whole age employ.”
― William Congreve, The Double Dealer

“No mask like open truth to cover lies,
As to go naked is the best disguise.”
― William Congreve

“Music has charms to soothe the savage beast.”
― William Congreve

“Hell hath no fury like a women scorned”
― William Congreve, The Mourning Bride by: William Congreve. / First presented in 1697 /

“Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast/To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak”
― William Congreve, The Mourning Bride

“Well, I shall understand your lingo one of these days, cousin.”
― William Congreve, The Way of the World