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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

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William Congreve
Age: 58 †
Born: 1670
Born: January 24
Died: 1729
Died: January 19
Engineer
Librettist
Playwright
Poet
Translator
Writer
Criticism
Spleen
Skills
Diseased
Please
Scarcely
Sure
Pleased
Come
Mortal
Must
Skill
Mortals
Critics

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O, nothing is more alluring than a levee from a couch in some confusion.
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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.
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I find we are growing serious, and then we are in great danger of being dull.
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I know that’s a secret, for it’s whispered everywhere.
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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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I nauseate walking 'tis a country diversion, I loathe the country.
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I am always of the opinion with the learned, if they speak first.
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Love's but a frailty of the mind, When 'tis not with ambition joined.
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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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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.
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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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Music alone with sudden charms can bind The wand'ring sense, and calm the troubled mind.
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Thou art a retailer of phrases, and dost deal in remnants of remnants.
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Courtship is to marriage, as a very witty prologue to a very dull play.
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These articles subscribed, if I continue to endure you a little longer, I may by degrees dwindle into wife.
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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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I always take blushing either for a sign of guilt, or of ill breeding.
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Let us be very strange and well-bred:Let us be as strange as if we had been married a great whileAnd as well-bred as if we were not married at all.
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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.
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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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