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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
Would
Conscience
Honor
Pay
Enemy
Public
Halves
Pleasure
Tribute
Half
Domestic
Must
Secure

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I nauseate walking 'tis a country diversion, I loathe the country.
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A hungry wolf at all the herd will run, In hopes, through many, to make sure of one.
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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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Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing.
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I hope you do not think me prone to any iteration of nuptials.
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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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I know a lady that loves to talk so incessantly, she won't give an echo fair play she has that everlasting rotation of tongue that an echo must wait till she dies before it can catch her last words!
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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.
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Beauty is the lover's gift.
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Music has charms to sooth a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.
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He who closes his ears to the views of others shows little confidence in the integrity of his own views.
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Men are apt to offend ('tis true) where they find most goodness to forgive.
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If happiness in self-content is placed, The wise are wretched, and fools only blessed.
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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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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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A woman only obliges a man to secrecy, that she may have the pleasure of telling herself.
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Women are like tricks by sleight of hand, Which, to admire, we should not understand
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Though marriage makes man and wife one flesh, it leaves 'em still two fools.
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How hard a thing 'twould be to please you all.
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Music alone with sudden charms can bind The wand'ring sense, and calm the troubled mind.
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