The voices / 70 fragments

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

1751 AD — 1816 AD

Listed in the author section of Bartlett’s ninth-edition anthology, in the linked 1905 printing. Dates reflect that historical edition and may differ from modern scholarship.

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▷ Play this voice Search within this voice ↗Place in time ↗learning knowledge mind love character life truth friendship

Historical source references

The Rivals
The Critic
School for Scandal
The Duenna
Pizarro
Speech in Reply to Mr
Clio's Protest
Printed citation: Sheridan
Number 782 · printed citation: Sheridan
Page 231 · printed citation: Sheridan · subject: Scandal
Page 241 · printed citation: Sheridan · subject: Slander

Archive entries

01c. 1783 AD

Illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan / quote

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02c. 1783 AD

'T is safest in matrimony to begin with a little aversion.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan / quote

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03c. 1783 AD

A progeny of learning.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan / quote

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04c. 1783 AD

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

Richard Brinsley Sheridan / quote

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05c. 1783 AD

He is the very pine-apple of politeness!

Richard Brinsley Sheridan / quote

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06c. 1783 AD

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

Richard Brinsley Sheridan / quote

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07c. 1783 AD

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

Richard Brinsley Sheridan / quote

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08c. 1783 AD

Too civil by half.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan / quote

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09c. 1783 AD

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 / quote

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10c. 1783 AD

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

Richard Brinsley Sheridan / quote

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11c. 1783 AD

We will not anticipate the past; so mind, young people,—our retrospection will be all to the future.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan / quote

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12c. 1783 AD

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

Richard Brinsley Sheridan / quote

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13c. 1783 AD

The quarrel is a very pretty quarrel as it stands; we should only spoil it by trying to explain it.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan / quote

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14c. 1783 AD

You 're our enemy; lead the way, and we 'll precede.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan / quote

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15c. 1783 AD

There 's nothing like being used to a thing.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan / quote

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16c. 1783 AD

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 / quote

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17c. 1783 AD

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

Richard Brinsley Sheridan / quote

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18c. 1783 AD

I own the soft impeachment.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan / quote

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19c. 1783 AD

Steal! to be sure they may; and, egad, serve your best thoughts as gypsies do stolen children,—disfigure them to make 'em pass for their own.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan / quote

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20c. 1783 AD

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

Richard Brinsley Sheridan / quote

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21c. 1783 AD

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

Richard Brinsley Sheridan / quote

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22c. 1783 AD

Sheer necessity,—the proper parent of an art so nearly allied to invention.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan / quote

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23c. 1783 AD

No scandal about Queen Elizabeth, I hope?

Richard Brinsley Sheridan / quote

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24c. 1783 AD

Certainly nothing is unnatural that is not physically impossible.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan / quote

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Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Archive entries

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