William Congreve
William Congreve
William Congrevewas an English playwright and poet...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth24 January 1670
winning play names
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.
pleasure please
Who pleases one against his will.
play echoes giving
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!
skills criticism spleen
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.
may wells timeliness
There are times when sense may be unseasonable, as well as truth.
thinking may action
You are a woman: you must never speak what you think; your words must contradict your thoughts, but your actions may contradict your words.
wife littles degrees
These articles subscribed, if I continue to endure you a little longer, I may by degrees dwindle into wife.
eye world fool
To find a young fellow that is neither a wit in his own eye, nor a fool in the eye of the world, is a very hard task.
hair poetry letters
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."
desire antidote
O, she is the antidote to desire.
college gentleman littles
'Tis well enough for a servant to be bred at an University. But the education is a little too pedantic for a gentleman.
father glasses idlers
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.
brain black despair
Invention flags, his brain goes muddy, and black despair succeeds brown study.
science reflection long
I confess freely to you, I could never look long upon a monkey, without very mortifying reflections.