Famous Richard Brinsley Sheridan Quotations

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"When delicate and feeling souls are separated, there is not a feature in the sky, not a movement of the elements, not an aspiration of the breeze, but hints some cause for a lover's apprehension."
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
"He is indebted to his memory for his jests and to his imagination for his facts."
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
"Humanity is composed but of two categories, the invalids and the nurses."
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
"The surest way not to fail is to determine to succeed."
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
"When of a gossiping circle it was asked, 'What are they doing?' The answer was, 'Swapping lies.'"
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
"When you meet your antagonist, do everything in a mild and agreeable manner. Let your courage be as keen, but at the same time as polished, as your sword."
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
"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."
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
"My valor is certainly going, it is sneaking off! I feel it oozing out as it were, at the palms of my hands!"
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
"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!"
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
"You know it is not my interest to pay the principal, or my principal to pay the interest."
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
"The surest way to fail is not to determine to succeed."
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
"When of a gossiping circle it was asked, What are they doing? The answer was, Swapping lies."
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
"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."
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
"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!"
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
"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."
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
"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."
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
"He is the very pineapple of politeness!"
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
"Ay, ay, the best terms will grow obsolete: damns have had their day."
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
"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."
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
"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."
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
"There is nothing on earth so easy as to forget, if a person chooses to set about it. I'm sure I have as much forgot your poor, dear uncle, as if he had never existed; and I thought it my duty to do so."
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
"'Tis safest in matrimony to begin with a little aversion."
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan


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