Quotes by Sheridan, Richard Brinsley

"When delicate and feeling souls are separated, there is not a feature in the sky, not a movement of the elements, not an aspiration of the breeze, but hints some cause for a lover's apprehension."

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on absence
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"You know it is not my interest to pay the principal, or my principal to pay the interest."

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on debt   

"The surest way to fail is not to determine to succeed."

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on failure   

"An unforgiving eye, and a damned disinheriting countenance!"

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on fathers   

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"That old man dies prematurely whose memory records no benefits conferred. They only have lived long who have lived virtuously."

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on age and aging   

"When of a gossiping circle it was asked, What are they doing? The answer was, Swapping lies."

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on gossip   

"The right honorable gentlemen is indebted to his memory for his jokes and his imagination for his facts."

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on humor   

"Nay, but Jack, such eyes! such eyes! so innocently wild! so bashfully irresolute! Not a glance but speaks and kindles some thought of love! Then, Jack, her cheeks! her cheeks, Jack! so deeply blushing at the insinuations of her tell-tale eyes! Then, Jack, her lips! O, Jack, lips smiling at their own discretion! and, if not smiling, more sweetly pouting -- more lovely in sullenness! Then, Jack, her neck! O, Jack, Jack!"

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on infatuation   

"I would by no means wish a daughter of mine to be a progeny of learning; I don't think so much learning becomes a young woman: for instance, I would never let her meddle with Greek, or Hebrew, or algebra, or simony, or fluxions, or paradoxes, or such inflammatory branches of learning; nor will it be necessary for her to handle any of your mathematical, astronomical, diabolical instruments; but... I would send her, at nine years old, to a boarding-school, in order to learn a little ingenuity and artifice: then, sir, she would have a supercilious knowledge in accounts, and, as she grew up, I would have her instructed in geometry, that she might know something of the contagious countries: this is what I would have a woman know; and I don't think there is a superstitious article in it."

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on learning   

"Madam, a circulating library in a town is as an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge; it blossoms through the year. And depend on it that they who are so fond of handling the leaves, will long for the fruit at last."

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on libraries   

"There's no possibility of being witty without a little ill-nature -- the malice of a good thing is the barb that makes it stick."

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on malice   

"He is the very pineapple of politeness!"

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on manners   

"'Tis safest in matrimony to begin with a little aversion."

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on marriage   

"He is indebted to his memory for his jests and to his imagination for his facts."

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on memory   

"Modesty is a quality in a lover more praised by the women than liked."

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on modesty   

"Pity those who nature abuses; never those who abuse nature."

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on pity
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"Those that vow the most are the least sincere."

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on sincerity   

"Here, my dear Lucy, hide these books. Quick, quick! Fling Peregrine Pickle under the toilette --throw Roderick Random into the closet --put The Innocent Adultery into The Whole Duty of Man; thrust Lord Aimworth under the sofa! cram Ovid behind the bolster; there --put The Man of Feeling into your pocket. Now for them."

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on books - reading   

"Ay, ay, the best terms will grow obsolete: damns have had their day."

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on swearing   

"Take care; you know I am compliance itself, when I am not thwarted! No one more easily led, when I have my own way; but don't put me in a frenzy."

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on temper   

"I open with a clock striking, to beget an awful attention in the audience -- it also marks the time, which is four o clock in the morning, and saves a description of the rising sun, and a great deal about gilding the eastern hemisphere."

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on theater   

"There is nothing on earth so easy as to forget, if a person chooses to set about it. I'm sure I have as much forgot your poor, dear uncle, as if he had never existed; and I thought it my duty to do so."

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on widowhood   

"Easy writings curse is hard reading."

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on writers and writing   

"Remember that when you meet your antagonist, to do everything in a mild agreeable manner. Let your courage be keen, but, at the same time, as polished as your sword."

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on conflict   

"Conscience has no more to do with gallantry than it has with politics."

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on science   

"My valor is certainly going, it is sneaking off! I feel it oozing out as it were, at the palms of my hands!"

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on war   

"For if there is anything to one's praise, it is foolish vanity to be gratified at it, and if it is abuse -- why one is always sure to hear of it from one damned good-natured friend or another!"

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on criticism   

"The Right Honourable Gentleman is indebted to his memory for his jests, and to his imagination for his facts. "

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on uncategorised