English Dramatist Quotations

Sleep is that golden chain that ties health and our bodies together.

Oh eyes, no eyes, but fountains fraught with tears; O life, no life, but lively form of death; Oh world, no world, but mass of public wrongs.

Shining through tears, like April suns in showers, that labour to overcome the cloud that loads 'em.

It requires genius to make a good pun - some men of bright parts can't reach it.

The family, that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor in our innermost hearts never quite wish to.

My son - and what's a song? A thing begot within a pair of minutes, thereabout, a lump bred up in darkness.

The charms of women were never more powerful never inspired such achievements, as in those immortal periods, when they could neither read nor write.

He who gives what he would as readily throw away, gives without generosity; for the essence of generosity is in self sacrifice.

Surely man was not created to be an idle fellow; he was not set in this universal orchard to stand still as a tree.

Everyone ought to bear patiently the results of his own conduct.

And what 's impossible can't be, And never, never comes to pass.

I have been five minutes too late all my life-time!

Were there no women, men might live like gods.

Love makes those young whom age doth chill, and whom he finds young keeps young still.

Every body about me seem'd happy but every body seem'd in a hurry to be happy somewhere else.

The hope, and not the fact, of advancement, is the spur to industry.

This age thinks better of a gilded fool Than of a threadbare saint in wisdom's school.

There is something revolting about the way girls' minds often jump to marriage long before they jump to love. And most of those minds are shut to what marriage really means.

I think when you're blessed with great influences, you need to spread it.

Golden slumbers kiss your eyes, Smiles awake you when you rise.

Time, still as he flies, adds increase to her truth, and gives to her mind what he steals from her youth.

And wit's the noblest frailty of the mind.

On their own merits modest men are dumb.

Conscience is, in most men, an anticipation of the opinions of others.

I have noticed that when things happen in one's imaginings, they never happen in one's life.

Age is like love, it cannot be hid.

Cast away care, he that loves sorrow Lengthens not a day, nor can buy tomorrow; Money is trash, and he that will spend it, Let him drink merrily, fortune will send it.

He that knew all that learning ever writ, Knew only this - that he knew nothing yet.

Arguments, like children, should be like the subject that begets them.

It is easy enough to praise men for the courage of their convictions. I wish I could teach the sad young of this mealy generation the courage of their confusions.

This principle is old, but true as fate, Kings may love treason, but the traitor hate.

Wit is more necessary than beauty; and I think no young woman ugly that has it, and no handsome woman agreeable without it.

We are ne'er like angels till our passion dies.

There is nothing wrong with sobriety in moderation.

Bluster, sputter, question, cavil; but be sure your argument be intricate enough to confound the court.

Thy books should, like thy friends, not many be, yet such wherein men may thy judgment see.

He's a fool that marries, but he's a greater that does not marry a fool; what is wit in a wife good for, but to make a man a cuckold?

Age is a very high price to pay for maturity.

This world, after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle wonderful, inscrutable, magical and more, to whosoever will think of it.

God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.

My crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy.

There have been many great men that have flattered the people who ne'er loved them.

He is not only dull in himself, but the cause of dullness in others.

He never is alone that is accompanied with noble thoughts.

When house and land are gone and spent, then learning is most excellent.

I think age is a very high price to pay for maturity.

So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage-leaf, to make an apple-pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street, pops its head into the shop. 'What! no soap?' So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber.

A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.

It's better to be quotable than to be honest.

The honor is overpaid, When he that did the act is commentator.

It is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.

Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

Beauty is all very well at first sight; but whoever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?

A friend i'the court is better than a penny in purse.

How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good dead in a naughty world.

All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players.