Quote

It is the business of a comic poet to paint the vices and follies of human kind.

William Congreve

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

William Congreve
Age: 58 †
Born: 1670
Born: January 24
Died: 1729
Died: January 19
Engineer
Librettist
Playwright
Poet
Translator
Writer
Business
Human
Follies
Humans
Folly
Kind
Vices
Comic
Paint
Kindness
Poet

More quotes by William Congreve

Image
Who pleases one against his will.
William Congreve
Image
Thou art a retailer of phrases, and dost deal in remnants of remnants.
William Congreve
Image
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
Image
Defer not till to-morrow to be wise, To-morrow's Sun to thee may never rise Or should to-morrow chance to cheer thy sight With her enlivening and unlook'd for light, How grateful will appear her dawning rays! As favours unexpected doubly please.
William Congreve
Image
If there's delight in love, 'Tis when I see that heart, which others bleed for, bleed for me.
William Congreve
Image
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
Image
Say what you will, 'tis better to be left than never to have been loved.
William Congreve
Image
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.
William Congreve
Image
I always take blushing either for a sign of guilt, or of ill breeding.
William Congreve
Image
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
Image
Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure Married in haste, we may repent at leisure.
William Congreve
Image
Though marriage makes man and wife one flesh, it leaves 'em still two fools.
William Congreve
Image
A little scorn is alluring.
William Congreve
Image
A hungry wolf at all the herd will run, In hopes, through many, to make sure of one.
William Congreve
Image
All well bred persons lie - Besides, you are a woman you must never speak what you think.
William Congreve
Image
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
Image
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.
William Congreve
Image
Music has charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak. I've read that things inanimate have moved, and, as with living souls, have been inform'd, by magic numbers and persuasive sound.
William Congreve
Image
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
Image
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