Richard Brinsley Sheridan

"I leave my character behind me."

"Here's to the maiden of bashful fifteen; Here's to the widow of fifty; Here's to the flaunting, extravegant quean, And here's to the housewife that's thrifty. Let the toast pass — Drink to the lass; I'll warrant she'll prove an excuse for the glass."

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

"Be just before you're generous."

"It was an amiable weakness."

"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."

"There is not a passion so strongly rooted in the human heart as envy."

"The newspapers! Sir, they are the most villainous — licentious — abominable — infernal — Not that I ever read them — no — I make it a rule never to look into a newspaper."

"Sheer necessity,—the proper parent of an art so nearly allied to invention."

"Egad, I think the interpreter is the hardest to be understood of the two!"

"A practitioner in panegyric, or, to speak more plainly, a professor of the art of puffing."

"The number of those who undergo the fatigue of judging for themselves is very small indeed!"

"No scandal about Queen Elizabeth, I hope?"

"Certainly nothing is unnatural that is not physically impossible."

"Where they do agree on the stage, their unanimity is wonderful."

"Inconsolable to the minuet in Ariadne."

"The Spanish fleet thou canst not see, because—it is not yet in sight!"

"I wish, sir, you would practice this without me. I can't stay dying here all night."

"You write with ease, to show your breeding, But easy writing’s vile hard reading."

"If it is abuse,—why one is always sure to hear of it from one damned goodnatured friend or another!"

"I wish sir, you would practise this without me. I can’t stay dying here all night. O Lord, Sir—when a heroine goes mad she always goes into white satin."

"I was struck all of a heap."

"The throne we honour is the people’s choice."

"’Tis safest in matrimony to begin with a little aversion. He is the very pineapple of politeness!"

"An aspersion upon my parts of speech!"

"She’s as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile."

"Mrs Candour: I’ll swear her colour is natural—I have seen it come and go—Lady Teazle: I dare swear you have, ma’am; it goes of a night and comes again in the morning."

"I’m called away by particular business—but I leave my character behind me."

"Here’s to the maiden of bashful fifteen Here’s to the widow of fifty Here’s to the flaunting, extravagant queen; And here’s to the housewife that’s thrifty. Let the toast pass— Drink to the lass— I’ll warrant she’ll prove an excuse for the glass!"

"Rowley: I believe there is no sentiment he has more faith in as that ‘Charity begins at home’.Sir Oliver Surface: And his I presume is of that domestic sort which never stirs abroad at all."

"There is no trusting appearances."

"A man may surely be allowed to take a glass of wine by his own fireside."

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

"Won’t you come into the garden? I would like my roses to see you."

"Mr. Sheridan opened the third charge against Mr. Hastings... The subject of this charge was peculiarly fitted for displaying all the pathetic powers of eloquence; and never were they displayed with greater skill, force, and elegance, than upon this occasion. For five hours and an half Mr. Sheridan kept the attention of the house (which from the expectation of the day was uncommonly crowded) fascinated by his eloquence; and when he sat down, the whole house — the members, peers, and strangers — involuntarily joined in a tumult of applause, and adopted a mode of expressing their approbation, new and irregular in that house, by loudly and repeatedly clapping their hands."

"Whatever Sheridan has done or chosen to do has been, par excellence, always the best of its kind. He has written the best comedy (School for Scandal), the best opera, (The Duenna—in my mind far before that St. Giles's lampoon, The Beggar's Opera,) the best farce, (The Critic—it is only too good for an after-piece,) and the best Address, (Monologue on Garrick,)—and, to crown all, delivered the very best oration (the famous Begum Speech) ever conceived or heard in this country!"

"In the same book [The Columbian Orator], I met with one of Sheridan's mighty speeches on and in behalf of Catholic emancipation. These were choice documents to me. I read them over and over again with unabated interest. They gave tongue to interesting thoughts of my own soul, which had frequently flashed through my mind, and died away for want of utterance. The moral which I gained from the dialogue was the power of truth over the conscience of even a slaveholder. What I got from Sheridan was a bold denunciation of slavery, and a powerful vindication of human rights."

"Verzweiflung tröstet hoffnungslose Liebe, doch des Rivalen Glück erträgt sie nicht."

"In der Ehe ist es am sichersten, mit einer kleinen Aversion zu beginnen."

"Es ist unmöglich, witzig zu sein ohne ein bißchen Bosheit; Die Malice eines guten Witzes ist der Widerhaken, den ihn haften macht."

"Bescheidenheit ist eine Eigenschaft, die die Frauen an einem Liebhaber mehr loben als lieben."