William Congreve (1670 – 1729)
English playwright and poet.
If there's delight in love, 'tis when I see
That heart which others bleed for, bleed for me.
If this be not love, it is madness, and then it is pardonable.
O, she is the antidote to desire.
Thou liar of the first magnitude.
Women are like tricks by sleight of hand,
Which, to admire, we should not understand.
No mask like open truth to cover lies,
As to go naked is the best disguise.
I nauseate walking; 'tis a country diversion, I loathe the country.
Defer not till tomorrow to be wise,
Tomorrow's sun to thee may never rise.
Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure;
Married in haste, we may repent at leisure.
I know that's a secret, for it's whispered every where.
Though marriage makes man and wife one flesh, it leaves 'em still two fools.
'Tis well enough for a servant to be bred at an University. But the education is a little too pedantic for a gentleman.
In my conscience I believe the baggage loves me, for she never speaks well of me herself, nor suffers any body else to rail at me.
I warrant you, if he danced till doomsday, he thought I was to pay the piper.
Hannibal was a very pretty fellow in those days.
They come together like the Coroner's Inquest, to sit upon the murdered reputations of the week.
Ferdinand Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the first magnitude.
Careless she is with artful care,
Affecting to seem unaffected.
Invention flags, his brain goes muddy,
And black despair succeeds brown study.
Ah! Whither, whither shall I fly,
A poor unhappy Maid;
To hopeless Love and Misery
By my own Heart betray’d?