All Quotes

"You had no taste when you married me."

"Here is the whole set! a character dead at every word."

"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."

"Nature is a vast repository of manly enjoyments."

"Some men are like pyramids, which are very broad when they touch the ground, but grow narrower as they reach the sky."

"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."

"The country was highly indebted to him for his fair and manly conduct."

"Mankiewicz started his own independent company in Italy, and spoke to me a few weeks ago of being anxious to make another classic with me and (conceivably) Audrey Hepburn. He suggested Twelfth Night but I tried very hard to woo him to the idea of The School for Scandal, which I have long thought might be an excellent vehicle for the screen, especially with an all-English star cast. For on the stage one can never afford to cast it up to the hilt, whereas even the smallest parts could be played by stars in a picture. Sheridan's style is so much more leisurely than Shakespeare's as regards construction, and would allow of cuts and transpositions without harming the quality of the text. The order of scenes — so important in Shakespeare — matters far less in Sheridan, and the humour seems to me universally comprehensible today for audiences everywhere, whereas in Shakespeare — particularly the comedies — there are so many archaic jokes that you have to keep cutting or leaving dead wood, especially with the low comedy parts and passages."

"He was handsome, not merely in the eyes of a partial sister, but generally allowed to be so. His cheeks had the glow of health, his eyes,—the finest in the world,—the brilliancy of genius, and were soft as a tender and affectionate heart could render them. The same playful fancy, the same sterling and innoxious wit, that was shown afterwards in his writings, cheered and delighted the family circle. I admired—I almost adored him. I would most willingly have sacrificed my life for him."

"[O]ne who was equally the delight of society, and the grace of literature — whom it has been for many years the fashion to quote as a bold reprover of the selfish spirit of party; and throughout a period fruitful of able men and trying circumstances, as the most popular specimen in the British senate of political consistency, intrepidity, and honour."

"Mr. Sheridan is one of the most perfect comic writers I know, and unites the most uncommon qualities — his plots are sufficiently deep, without the clumsy entanglement and muddy profundity of Congreve — characters strictly in nature — wit without affectation. What talents! — The complete orator in the senate, or in Westminster Hall — and the excellent dramatist in the most difficult province of the drama!"

"Where is human nature so weak as in a book store?"

"A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessaries of life."

"Oh, tell me not that they are dead — that generous host, that airy army of invisible heroes. They hover as a cloud of witnesses above this nation. Are they dead that yet speak louder than we can speak, and a more universal language? Are they dead that yet act? Are they dead that yet move upon society, and inspire the people with nobler motives, and more heroic patriotism? Ye that mourn, let gladness mingle with your tears. It was your son, but now he is the nation's. He made your household bright: now his example inspires a thousand households. Dear to his brothers and sisters, he is now brother to every generous youth in the land. Before, he was narrowed, appropriated, shut up to you. Now he is augmented, set free, and given to all. Before, he was yours: he is ours. He has died from the family, that he might live to the nation. Not one name shall be forgotten or neglected: and it shall by and by be confessed of our modern heroes, as it is of an ancient hero, that he did more for his country by his death than by his whole life."

"Humor is, however, nearer right than any emotion we have. Humor is the atmosphere in which grace most flourishes."