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

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
Prologue
Courtship
Witty
Dull
Marriage
Play

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I nauseate walking 'tis a country diversion, I loathe the country.
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You are a woman: you must never speak what you think your words must contradict your thoughts, but your actions may contradict your words.
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Music alone with sudden charms can bind The wand'ring sense, and calm the troubled mind.
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Nothing but you can lay hold of my mind, and that can lay hold of nothing but you.
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They are at the end of the gallery retired to their tea and scandal, according to their ancient custom.
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I hope you do not think me prone to any iteration of nuptials.
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Invention flags, his brain goes muddy, And black despair succeeds brown study.
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I came up stairs into the world, for I was born in a cellar.
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Women are like tricks by sleight of hand, Which, to admire, we should not understand
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It is the business of a comic poet to paint the vices and follies of human kind.
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In my conscience I believe the baggage loves me, for she never speaks well of me herself, nor suffers any body else to rail at me.
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Would any thing but a madman complain of uncertainty? Uncertainty and expectation are joys of life security is an insipid thing and the overtaking and possessing of a wish discovers the folly of the chase.
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Thou art a retailer of phrases, and dost deal in remnants of remnants.
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Delay not till tomorrow to be wise tomorrow's sun to thee may neve rise.
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O, nothing is more alluring than a levee from a couch in some confusion.
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Beauty is the lover's gift.
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Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure Married in haste, we may repent at leisure.
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If happiness in self-content is placed, The wise are wretched, and fools only blessed.
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Though marriage makes man and wife one flesh, it leaves 'em still two fools.
William Congreve
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There are come Critics so with Spleen diseased, They scarcely come inclining to be pleased: And sure he must have more than mortal Skill, Who please one against his Will.
William Congreve