Great Throughts Treasury

"The coldness of a losing gamester lessens the pleasure of the winner. I would no more play with a man that slighted his ill fortune than I would make love to a woman who undervalued the loss of her reputation."

"The falling-out of wits is like the falling-out of lovers: we agree in the main, like treble and bass."

"The good receiv'd, the giver is forgot."

"There are some Critics so with Spleen diseased, they scarcely come inclining to be pleased: and sure he must have more than mortal Skill, who please one against his Will."

"There is in true beauty, as in courage, something which narrow souls cannot dare to admire."

"There is nothing more unbecoming a man of quality than to laugh ... 'tis such a vulgar expression of the passion!"

"These articles subscribed, if I continue to endure you a little longer, I may by degrees dwindle into a wife."

"They are at the end of the gallery retired to their tea and scandal, according to their ancient custom."

"They come together like the Coroner's Inquest, to sit upon the murdered reputations of the week."

"They could neither of them speak for rage, and so fell a-sputtering at one another like two roasting apples."

"Tho' marriage makes man and wife one flesh, it leaves 'em still two fools."

"Thou art a retailer of phrases, and dost deal in remnants of remnants."

"Thou liar of the first magnitude."

"Though marriage makes man and wife one flesh, it leaves em still two fools."

"Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure, Married in haste, we may repent at leisure."

"Thus in this sad, but oh, too pleasing state! My soul can fix upon nothing but thee; thee it contemplates, admires, adores, nay depends on, trusts on you alone."

"Thy wife is a constellation of virtues; she's the moon, and thou art the man in the moon."

"Till sorrow seemed to wear one common face."

"Timorous virgins form a dreadful chimera of a husband, as of a creature quite contrary to that soft, humble, pliant, easy thing, a lover."

"'Tis well enough for a servant to be bred at an University. But the education is a little too pedantic for a gentleman."

"To find a young fellow that is neither a wit in his own eye, nor a fool in the eye of the world, is a very hard task."

"Turn pimp, flatterer, quack, lawyer, parson, be chaplain to an atheist, or stallion to an old woman, anything but a poet for a poet is worse, more servile, timorous and fawning than any I have named."

"What, wouldst thou have me turn pelican, and feed thee out of my own vitals?"

"When wit and reason both have fail'd to move kind looks and actions, (from success) do prove ev'n silence may be eloquent in love."

"Where modesty's ill manners, 'tis but fitThat impudence and malice pass for wit."

"Who nothing has to lose, the war bewails; and he who nothing pay, at taxes rails."

"Who pleases one against his will."

"Whoever is king, is also the father of his country."

"Why, at this rate, a fellow that has but a groat in his pocket may have a stomach capable of a ten-shilling ordinary."

"Wife, spouse, my dear, joy, jewel, love, sweet-heart and the rest of that nauseous cant, in which men and their wives are so fulsomely familiar."

"Wit must be foiled by wit cut a diamond with a diamond."

"Women are like tricks by sleight of hand, which, to admire, we should not understand."

"Wou'd I were free from this restraint, Or else had hopes to win her Wou'd she cou'd make me a saint, Or I of her a sinner"

"Yes, but tenderness becomes me best - a sort of dyingness - you see that picture has a sort of a - ha, foible a swimmingness in the eyes."

"You are a woman you must never speak what you think your words must contradict your thoughts, but your actions may contradict your words."

"You are all camphire and frankincense, all chastity and odour."

"You are an annihilator of sense."

"You'll grow devilish fat upon this paper-diet!"