181 Quotes by Richard Brinsley Sheridan

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...

MARIA. Well I’ll not debate how far Scandal may be allowable – but in a man I am sure it is always contemtable. – We have Pride, envy, Rivalship, and a Thousand motives to depreciate each other – but the male-slanderer must have the cowardice of a woman before He can traduce one.

PETER. Egad – and so we must – that’s impossible. Ah! Master Rowley when an old Batchelor marries a young wife – He deserves – no the crime carries the Punishment along with it.

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.

Humanity is composed but of two categories, the invalids and the nurses.

My valour is certainly going! – it is sneaking off! – I feel it oozing out as it were at the palms of my hands!

You write with ease, to show your breeding, But easy writing’s vile hard reading.

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.

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.