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

William Congreve

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William Congreve
Age: 58 †
Born: 1670
Born: January 24
Died: 1729
Died: January 19
Engineer
Librettist
Playwright
Poet
Translator
Writer
Loved
Left
Better
Never
Love
Life

More quotes by William Congreve

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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
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Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing.
William Congreve
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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.
William Congreve
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Turn pimp, flatterer, quack, lawyer, parson, be chaplain to an atheist, or stallion to an old woman, anything but a poet for a poet is worse, more servile, timorous and fawning than any I have named.
William Congreve
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Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast...
William Congreve
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Music alone with sudden charms can bind The wand'ring sense, and calm the troubled mind.
William Congreve
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Marriage is honourable, as you say and if so, wherefore should Cuckoldom be a Discredit, being deriv'd from so honourable a Root?
William Congreve
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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
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Blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds, and though a late, a sure reward succeeds.
William Congreve
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Music has charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak. I've read that things inanimate have moved, and, as with living souls, have been inform'd, by magic numbers and persuasive sound.
William Congreve
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Men are apt to offend ('tis true) where they find most goodness to forgive.
William Congreve
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Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure Married in haste, we may repent at leisure.
William Congreve
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O ay, letters - I had letters - I am persecuted with letters - I hate letters - nobody knows how to write letters and yet one has 'em, one does not know why - they serve one to pin up one's hair.
William Congreve
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Let us be very strange and well-bred:Let us be as strange as if we had been married a great whileAnd as well-bred as if we were not married at all.
William Congreve
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I am always of the opinion with the learned, if they speak first.
William Congreve
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I find we are growing serious, and then we are in great danger of being dull.
William Congreve
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Though marriage makes man and wife one flesh, it leaves 'em still two fools.
William Congreve
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Fear comes from uncertainty. When we are absolutely certain, whether of our worth or worthlessness, we are almost impervious to fear.
William Congreve
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Thou art a retailer of phrases, and dost deal in remnants of remnants.
William Congreve
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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.
William Congreve