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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

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William Congreve
Age: 58 †
Born: 1670
Born: January 24
Died: 1729
Died: January 19
Engineer
Librettist
Playwright
Poet
Translator
Writer
Public
Halves
Pleasure
Tribute
Half
Domestic
Must
Secure
Would
Conscience
Honor
Pay
Enemy

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Invention flags, his brain goes muddy, And black despair succeeds brown study.
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I always take blushing either for a sign of guilt, or of ill breeding.
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Wit must be foiled by wit: cut a diamond with a diamond.
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Every man plays the fool once in his live, but to marry is playing the fool all one's life long.
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Women like flames have a destroying power never to be quenched till they themselves devour.
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No mask like open truth to cover lies, As to go naked is the best disguise.
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Beauty is the lover's gift.
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I hope you do not think me prone to any iteration of nuptials.
William Congreve
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O, she is the antidote to desire.
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
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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
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Whoever is king, is also the father of his country.
William Congreve
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A little scorn is alluring.
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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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Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing.
William Congreve
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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.
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Who pleases one against his will.
William Congreve
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Though marriage makes man and wife one flesh, it leaves 'em still two fools.
William Congreve
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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.
William Congreve
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I nauseate walking 'tis a country diversion, I loathe the country.
William Congreve