Top 100 Richard Brinsley Sheridan Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Never say more than is necessary.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

2. “The surest way not to fail is to determine to succeed.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

3. “Won’t you come into the garden? I would like my roses to see you.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

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

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

5. “An oyster may be crossed in love.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

6. “Be just before you are generous.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

7. “A life spent worthily should be measured by a nobler line,-by deeds, not years.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

8. “There’s only one truth about war: people die.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

9. “Modesty is a quality in a lover more praised by the women than liked.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

10. “A wise woman will always let her husband have her way.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

11. “Self confidence is the ground stone of success.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

12. “I am compliance itself – when I am not thwarted; – no one more easily led – when I have my own way.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

13. “I had rather follow you to your grave than see you owe your life to any but a regular-bred physician.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

14. “There is not a passion so strongly rooted in the human heart as envy.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

15. “Had I a thousand daughters, by Heaven! I’d as soon have them taught the black art as their alphabet!”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

16. “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.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

17. “Tale-bearers are as bad as the tale-makers.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

18. “To pity, without the power to relieve, is still more painful than to ask and be denied.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

19. “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.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

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

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

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

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

22. “We will not anticipate the past; so mind, young people,-our retrospection will be all to the future.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

23. “She’s as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

24. “It is not my interest to pay the principal, nor my principle to pay the interest.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

25. “I leave my character behind me.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

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

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

27. “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.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

28. “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.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

29. “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.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

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

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

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

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

32. “I own the soft impeachment.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

33. “I hate to see prudence clinging to the green suckers of youth; ’tis like ivy round a sapling, and spoils the growth of the tree.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

34. “Fertilizer does no good in a heap, but a little spread around works miracles all over.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

35. “A tale of scandal is as fatal to the credit of a prudent lady as a fever is generally to those of the strongest constitutions. But there is a sort of puny, sickly reputation, that is always ailing, yet will wither the robuster characters of a hundred prudes.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

36. “An apothecary should never be out of spirits.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

37. “He is the very pineapple of politeness.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

38. “A progeny of learning.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

39. “I would by no means wish a daughter of mine to be a progeny of learning.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

40. “Mr. Speaker. I said the honorable member was a liar it is true and I am sorry for it. The honorable member may place the punctuation where he pleases.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

41. “A man may surely be allowed to take a glass of wine by his own fireside.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

42. “To smile at the jest which plants a thorn in another’s breast is to become a principal in the mischief.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

43. “Many a wretch has rid on a hurdle who has done less mischief than utterers of forged tales, coiners of scandal, and clippers of reputation.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

44. “An unforgiving eye, and a damned disinheriting countenance!”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

45. “There are a set of malicious, prating, prudent gossips, both male and female, who murder characters to kill time; and will rob a young fellow of his good name before he has years to know the value of it.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

46. “An aspersion upon my parts of speech!”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

47. “The silver ore of pure charity is an expensive article in the catalogue of a man’s good qualities.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

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

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

49. “Illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

50. “I’m called away by particular business – but I leave my character behind me.”

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan