1751-1816, Anglo-Irish Dramatist
'Tis safest in matrimony to begin with a little aversion.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan – [Marriage]
An unforgiving eye, and a damned disinheriting countenance!
Richard Brinsley Sheridan – [Fathers]
Ay, ay, the best terms will grow obsolete: damns have had their day.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan – [Swearing]
Conscience has no more to do with gallantry than it has with politics.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan – [Conscience]
Easy writings curse is hard reading.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan – [Writers and Writing]
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!
Richard Brinsley Sheridan – [Critics and Criticism]
He is indebted to his memory for his jests and to his imagination for his facts.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan – [Memory]
He is the very pineapple of politeness!
Richard Brinsley Sheridan – [Manners]
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.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan – [Books and Reading]
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.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan – [Theater]
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.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan – [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.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan – [Libraries]
Modesty is a quality in a lover more praised by the women than liked.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan – [Modesty]
My valor is certainly going, it is sneaking off! I feel it oozing out as it were, at the palms of my hands!
Richard Brinsley Sheridan – [Coward and Cowardice]
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!
Richard Brinsley Sheridan – [Infatuation]
Pity those who nature abuses; never those who abuse nature.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan – [Pity]
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.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan – [Conflict]
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.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan – [Temper]
That old man dies prematurely whose memory records no benefits conferred. They only have lived long who have lived virtuously.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan – [Age and Aging]
The right honorable gentlemen is indebted to his memory for his jokes and his imagination for his facts.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan – [Humor]