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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
Wit
Cutting
Must
Foiled
Jewelry
Diamond

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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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Beauty is the lover's gift.
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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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Marriage indeed may qualify the fury of his passion, but it very rarely mends a man's manners.
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No, I'm no enemy to learning it hurts not me.
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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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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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Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing.
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I know that’s a secret, for it’s whispered everywhere.
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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
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There are times when sense may be unseasonable, as well as truth.
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She once used me with that insolence, that in revenge I took her to pieces sifted her, and separated her failings I studied 'em, and got 'em by rote. The catalogue was so large, that I was not without hopes, one day or other to hate her heartily.
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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.
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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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Say what you will, 'tis better to be left than never to have been loved.
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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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Invention flags, his brain goes muddy, And black despair succeeds brown study.
William Congreve
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If there's delight in love, 'Tis when I see that heart, which others bleed for, bleed for me.
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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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Hannibal was a very pretty fellow in those days.
William Congreve