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Wit must be foiled by wit: cut a diamond with a diamond.

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
Jewelry
Diamond
Wit
Cutting
Must
Foiled

More quotes by William Congreve

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O, she is the antidote to desire.
William Congreve
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These articles subscribed, if I continue to endure you a little longer, I may by degrees dwindle into wife.
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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.
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I hope you do not think me prone to any iteration of nuptials.
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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.
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Though marriage makes man and wife one flesh, it leaves 'em still two fools.
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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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Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing.
William Congreve
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Guilt is ever at a loss, and confusion waits upon it when innocence and bold truth are always ready for expression.
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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O, nothing is more alluring than a levee from a couch in some confusion.
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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To converse with Scandal is to play at Losing Loadum, you must lose a good name to him, before you can win it for yourself.
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There are times when sense may be unseasonable, as well as truth.
William Congreve
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A woman only obliges a man to secrecy, that she may have the pleasure of telling herself.
William Congreve
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I know that’s a secret, for it’s whispered everywhere.
William Congreve
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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.
William Congreve
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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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I find we are growing serious, and then we are in great danger of being dull.
William Congreve
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There is nothing more unbecoming a man of quality than to laugh ... 'tis such a vulgar expression of the passion!
William Congreve