Richard Brinsley Sheridan Quotes

“You are not like Cerberus, three gentlemen at once, are you?”

Act V, sc. iii.
The Rivals (1775)

“Death's a debt; his mandamus binds all alike — no bail, no demurrer.”

Act IV, sc. ii.
The Rivals (1775)

“I ne'er could any luster see
In eyes that would not look on me.”

St. Patrick's Day (1775), Act II, sc. iv.

“The newspapers! Sir, they are the most villainous — licentious — abominable — infernal — Not that I ever read them — no — I make it a rule never to look into a newspaper.”

Act I, sc. ii.
The Duenna (1775)

“Where they do agree on the stage, their unanimity is wonderful.”

Act I, sc. i.
The Critic (1779)

“Certainly nothing is unnatural that is not physically impossible.”

Act II, sc. ii.
The Critic (1779)

“Here is the whole set! a character dead at every word.”

Act II, sc. i.
The Critic (1779)

“Date not the life which thou hast run by the mean of reckoning of the hours and days, which though hast breathed: a life spent worthily should be measured by a nobler line, — by deeds, not years…”

Act II, sc. ii.
The School for Scandal (1777)

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

Pizarro (first acted 24 May 1799), Act iv, Scene 1. Compare: "Who well lives, long lives; for this age of ours / Should not be numbered by years, daies, and hours", Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas, Second Week, Fourth Day, Book ii.

“A practitioner in panegyric, or, to speak more plainly, a professor of the art of puffing.”

Act II, sc. iv.
The Duenna (1775)

“If I reprehend anything in this world, it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs!”

Act I, sc. ii.
The Critic (1779)

“A bumper of good liquor
Will end a contest quicker
Than justice, judge, or vicar.”

Act III, sc. iii.
The Rivals (1775)

“As headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile.”

Act I, sc. iii.
The Duenna (1775)

“No scandal about Queen Elizabeth, I hope?”

Act III, sc. iii.
The Rivals (1775)

“Egad, I think the interpreter is the hardest to be understood of the two!”

Act II, sc. i.
The Critic (1779)

“Here's to the maiden of bashful fifteen;
Here's to the widow of fifty;
Here's to the flaunting, extravegant quean,
And here's to the housewife that's thrifty.
Let the toast pass —
Drink to the lass;
I'll warrant she'll prove an excuse for the glass.”

Act I, sc. ii.
The Critic (1779)

“You had no taste when you married me.”

Act III, sc. iii.
The School for Scandal (1777)

“A circulating library in a town is as an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge.”

Act I, sc. ii.
The School for Scandal (1777)

“No caparisons, miss, if you please. Caparisons don't become a young woman.”

Act III, sc. i.
The Rivals (1775)

“I own the soft impeachment.”

Act IV, sc. ii.
The Rivals (1775)

“I wish, sir, you would practice this without me. I can't stay dying here all night.”

Act V, sc. iii.
The Rivals (1775)

“You write with ease to show your breeding,
But easy writing's curst hard reading.”

Act III, sc. i.
The Critic (1779)

“Such protection as vultures give to lambs.”

Clio's Protest (1819).

“There's nothing like being used to a thing.”

Pizarro (first acted 24 May 1799), Act ii, scene 2.

“Inconsolable to the minuet in Ariadne.”

Act V, sc. iii.
The Rivals (1775)

“Had I a heart for falsehood framed,
I ne'er could injure you.”

Act II, sc. ii.
The Critic (1779)

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

Act I, sc. v.
The Duenna (1775)

“I know you are laughing in your sleeve.”

Act IV, sc. i.
The Rivals (1775)

“Tis safest in matrimony to begin with a little aversion.”

Act II, sc. i.
The Rivals (1775)

“You shall see them on a beautiful quarto page, where a neat rivulet of text shall meander through a meadow of margin.”

Act I, sc. ii.
The Rivals (1775)

Act I, sc. i.
The School for Scandal (1777)

“Too civil by half.”

Act III, sc. iv.
The Rivals (1775)

“A progeny of learning.”

“My valour is certainly going!”

Act I, sc. ii.
The Rivals (1775)

“Take our constitution, wanting certainly as it did many reforms, yet, practically, it afforded the best security that human wisdom had ever given to man.”

it is sneaking off! I feel it oozing out, as it were, at the palm of my hands!
Act V, sc. iii.
The Rivals (1775)