William Congreve
William Congreve
William Congrevewas an English playwright and poet...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth24 January 1670
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.
passion men may
Marriage indeed may qualify the fury of his passion, but it very rarely mends a man's manners.
men may pleasure
A woman only obliges a man to secrecy, that she may have the pleasure of telling herself.
dead quite
Is he then dead? / What, dead at last, quite, quite for ever dead!
age age-and-aging believe golden men
Believe it, Men have ever been the same,And all the Golden Age is but a Dream.
almost looks sweet treats whom
Whom she refuses, she treats still / With so much sweet behaviour, / That her refusal, through her skill, / Looks almost like a favour.
men rest wives
Wife, spouse, my dear, joy, jewel, love, sweet-heart and the rest of that nauseous cant, in which men and their wives are so fulsomely familiar.
leisure married repent
Married in haste, we may repent at leisure.
born came upstairs
I came upstairs into the world; for I was born in a cellar.
affecting artful careless seem
Careless she is with artful care, / Affecting to seem unaffected.
asked question
She is chaste who was never asked the question
fire lost proper rude shock smoke
Nature, to each allots his proper Sphere, But, that forsaken, we like Comets err: Toss'd thro' the Void, by some rude Shock we're broke, And all our boasted Fire is lost in Smoke
bend charms english-poet hath music savage soothe
Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.