Quotes from Richard Brinsley Sheridan

He is the very pineapple of politeness!

if Charles is undone, he'll find half his acquaintance ruined too, and that, you know, is a consolation.

Our ancestors are very good kind of folks; but they are the last people I should choose to have a visiting acquaintance with.

Just. Why, zounds! will you hear me or no?

Just. There they go, ding dong in for the day. Good lack! a fluent tongue is the only thing a mother don't like her daughter to resemble her in.

The silver ore of pure charity is an expensive article in the catalogue of a man's good qualities.

Wine does but draw forth a man's natural qualities.

A man may think an untruth as well as speak one.

That old man dies prematurely whose memory records no benefits conferred. They only have lived long who have lived virtuously.

A fluent tongue is the only thing a mother don't like her daughter to resemble her in.

There's no possibility of being witty without a little ill-nature - the malice of a good thing is the barb that makes it stick.

Conscience has no more to do with gallantry than it has with politics.

Fertilizer does no good in a heap, but a little spread around works miracles all over.

Good reading makes for damn hard writing.

Our ancestors are very good kind of folks; but they are the last people I should choose to have a visiting acquaintance with.

If the thought is slow to come, a glass of good wine encourages it; and when it does come, a glass of good wine rewards it.

Happiness is an exotic of celestial birth.

Never say more than is necessary.

I ne'er could any lustre see In eyes that would not look on me; I ne'er saw nectar on a lip But where my own did hope to sip.

Humanity always becomes a conqueror.

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

The surest way to fail is not to determine to succeed.

Pity those who nature abuses; never those who abuse nature.

Through all the drama—whether damned or not—Love gilds the scene, and women guide the plot.