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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
Play
Prologue
Courtship
Witty
Dull
Marriage

More quotes by 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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Come, come, leave business to idlers, and wisdom to fools: they have need of 'em: wit be my faculty, and pleasure my occupation, and let father Time shake his glass.
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?
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Blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds, and though a late, a sure reward succeeds.
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They are at the end of the gallery retired to their tea and scandal, according to their ancient custom.
William Congreve
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If happiness in self-content is placed, The wise are wretched, and fools only blessed.
William Congreve
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How hard a thing 'twould be to please you all.
William Congreve
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O, nothing is more alluring than a levee from a couch in some confusion.
William Congreve
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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
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He that first cries out stop thief, is often he that has stolen the treasure.
William Congreve
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He who closes his ears to the views of others shows little confidence in the integrity of his own views.
William Congreve
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Women are like tricks by sleight of hand, Which, to admire, we should not understand
William Congreve
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I know a lady that loves to talk so incessantly, she won't give an echo fair play she has that everlasting rotation of tongue that an echo must wait till she dies before it can catch her last words!
William Congreve
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Words are the weak support of cold indifference love has no language to be heard.
William Congreve
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Beauty is the lover's gift.
William Congreve
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O fie, miss, you must not kiss and tell.
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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I always take blushing either for a sign of guilt, or of ill breeding.
William Congreve
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I know that’s a secret, for it’s whispered everywhere.
William Congreve
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There is in true Beauty, as in Courage, somewhat which narrow Souls cannot dare to admire.
William Congreve