Richard Brinsley Sheridan: Trending quotes (page 2)

“Believe not each accusing tongue,
As most weak persons do;
But still believe that story wrong,
Which ought not to be true!”

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Reported in Nicholas Harris Nicolas, The Carcanet: a Literary Album, Containing Select Passages from the Most Distinguished English Writers (1828), p. 132.

Personality

“As there are three of us come on purpose for the game, you won't be so cantankerous as to spoil the party by sitting out.”

Richard Brinsley Sheridan The Rivals

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

Game

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

Richard Brinsley Sheridan The Rivals

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

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

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

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

Death

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

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

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

“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.”

Richard Brinsley Sheridan The Critic

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

Reading

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

Richard Brinsley Sheridan The Critic

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

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

Richard Brinsley Sheridan The Critic

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

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

Richard Brinsley Sheridan The School for Scandal

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

Dead

“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…”

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

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.

Life

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

Richard Brinsley Sheridan The Rivals

Epilogue.
The Rivals (1775)

Love , Women

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

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

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