79 quotes
The number of those who undergo the fatigue of judging for themselves is very small indeed!
The Critic (1779)
Believe not each accusing tongue,
As most weak persons do;
But still believe that story wrong,
Which ought not to be true!
'Tis safest in matrimony to begin with a little aversion.
The Rivals (1775)
Tale-bearers are as bad as the tale-makers.
The School for Scandal (1777)
Never say more than is necessary.
The Rivals (1775)
The quarrel is a very pretty quarrel as it stands; we should only spoil it by trying to explain it.
The Rivals (1775)
You shall see them on a beautiful quarto page, where a neat rivulet of text shall meander through a meadow of margin.
The School for Scandal (1777)
A circulating library in a town is as an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge.
The Rivals (1775)
Sheer necessity,—the proper parent of an art so nearly allied to invention.
The Critic (1779)
Egad, I think the interpreter is the hardest to be understood of the two!
The Critic (1779)
Conscience has no more to do with gallantry than it has with politics.
The Duenna (1775)
Certainly nothing is unnatural that is not physically impossible.
The Critic (1779)
You are not like Cerberus, three gentlemen at once, are you?
The Rivals (1775)
An unforgiving eye, and a damned disinheriting countenance.
The School for Scandal (1777)
As headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile.
The Rivals (1775)
Through all the drama — whether damned or not —
Love gilds the scene, and women guide the plot.
The Rivals (1775)
There is not a passion so strongly rooted in the human heart as envy.
The Critic (1779)
Our ancestors are very good kind of folks; but they are the last people I should choose to have a visiting acquaintance with.
The Rivals (1775)
There's nothing like being used to a thing.
The Rivals (1775)
Steal! to be sure they may; and, egad, serve your best thoughts as gypsies do stolen children,—disfigure them to make 'em pass for their own.
The Critic (1779)