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"The Right Honourable gentleman is indebted to his memory for his jests, and to his imagination for his facts."
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), Anglo-Irish dramatist. Quoted in Memoirs of the Life of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, vol. 2, Thomas Moore (1825).
Reply to Dundas. |
"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 (1751-1816), Anglo-Irish dramatist. Sir Anthony Absolute, in The Rivals, act 1, sc. 2. |
"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 (1751-1816), Anglo-Irish dramatist. Sir Anthony Absolute, in The Rivals, act 3, sc. 1.
Describing Lydia Languish, whom he wants his son to marry. |
"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 phrenzy."
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), Anglo-Irish dramatist. Sir Anthony Absolute, in The Rivals, act 2, sc. 1. |
"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 (1751-1816), Anglo-Irish dramatist. Sir Fretful Plagiary, in The Critic, act 1, sc. 1, l. 355-7 (1779).
On not reading the reviewers. |
"Modesty is a quality in a lover more praised by the women than liked."
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), Anglo-Irish dramatist. Sir Lucius O'Trigger, in The Rivals, act 2, sc. 2. |
"For let 'em be clumsy, or let 'em be slim,
Young or ancient, I care not a feather;
So fill a pint bumper quite up to the brim,
And let us e'en toast them together."
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), Irish dramatist. The School for Scandal (l. 16-19). . .
Oxford Book of Light Verse, The. W. H. Auden, ed. (1938) Oxford University Press. |
"My valour is certainly going, it is sneaking off! I feel it oozing out as it were, at the palms of my hands!"
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), Anglo-Irish dramatist. Acres, in The Rivals, act 5, sc. 2 (1775). |
"Ay, ay, the best terms will grow obsolete: damns have had their day."
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), Anglo-Irish dramatist. Acres, in The Rivals, act 2, sc. 1. |
"An unforgiving eye, and a damned disinheriting countenance!"
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), Anglo-Irish dramatist. Careless, in The School for Scandal, act 4, sc. 1, l. 91 (1777).
Describing the portrait of Sir Oliver Surface. |
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Richard Brinsley Sheridan
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