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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

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I confess freely to you, I could never look long upon a monkey, without very mortifying reflections.
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A woman only obliges a man to secrecy, that she may have the pleasure of telling herself.
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A little scorn is alluring.
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I nauseate walking 'tis a country diversion, I loathe the country.
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Marriage indeed may qualify the fury of his passion, but it very rarely mends a man's manners.
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I find we are growing serious, and then we are in great danger of being dull.
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I hope you do not think me prone to any iteration of nuptials.
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They come together like the Coroner's Inquest, to sit upon the murdered reputations of the week.
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Invention flags, his brain goes muddy, And black despair succeeds brown study.
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All well bred persons lie - Besides, you are a woman you must never speak what you think.
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Some by experience find those words mis-placed: At leisure married, they repent in haste.
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Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast...
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I am a fool, I know it and yet, Heaven help me, I'm poor enough to be a wit.
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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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There is nothing more unbecoming a man of quality than to laugh ... 'tis such a vulgar expression of the passion!
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O fie, miss, you must not kiss and tell.
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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.
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Thou art a retailer of phrases, and dost deal in remnants of remnants.
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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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Honor is a public enemy, and conscience a domestic, and he that would secure his pleasure, must pay a tribute to one and go halves with t'other.
William Congreve