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One minute gives invention to destroy What to rebuild, will a whole age employ.

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
Giving
Invention
Minute
Destroy
Destruction
Gives
Minutes
Age
Rebuild
Whole
Employ

More quotes by William Congreve

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No mask like open truth to cover lies, As to go naked is the best disguise.
William Congreve
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I am always of the opinion with the learned, if they speak first.
William Congreve
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Courtship is to marriage, as a very witty prologue to a very dull play.
William Congreve
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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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Delay not till tomorrow to be wise tomorrow's sun to thee may neve rise.
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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
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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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I came up stairs into the world, for I was born in a cellar.
William Congreve
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Mr Witwould: Pray, madam, do you pin up your hair with all your letters? I find I must keep copies. Mrs Millamant: Only with those in verse.... I never pin up my hair with prose.
William Congreve
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Nothing but you can lay hold of my mind, and that can lay hold of nothing but you.
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.
William Congreve
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Some by experience find those words mis-placed: At leisure married, they repent in haste.
William Congreve
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I nauseate walking 'tis a country diversion, I loathe the country.
William Congreve
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Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure Married in haste, we may repent at leisure.
William Congreve
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Men are apt to offend ('tis true) where they find most goodness to forgive.
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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A woman only obliges a man to secrecy, that she may have the pleasure of telling herself.
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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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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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