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 (1751-1816), Anglo-Irish dramatist. Acres, in The Rivals, act 5, sc. 2 (1775).)

Ay, ay, the best terms will grow obsolete: damns have had their day.

(Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), Anglo-Irish dramatist. Acres, in The Rivals, act 2, sc. 1.)

An unforgiving eye, and a damned disinheriting countenance!

(Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), Anglo-Irish dramatist. Careless, in The School for Scandal, act 4, sc. 1, l. 91 (1777). Describing the portrait of Sir Oliver Surface.)

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 (1751-1816), Anglo-Irish dramatist. Faulkland, in The Rivals, act 2, sc. 1.)

Here's to the maiden of bashful fifteen;
Here's to the widow of fifty;
Here's to the flaunting extravagant queen;
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.

(Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), Anglo-Irish dramatist. Chorus, in The School for Scandal, act 3, sc. 3, l. 40-6 (1777).)

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

(Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), Anglo-Irish dramatist. Isaac Mendoza, in The Duenna, act 2, sc. 4, l. 62-3 (1775).)

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 (1751-1816), Anglo-Irish dramatist. Lady Sneerwell, in The School for Scandal, act 1, sc. 1, l. 144-5 (1777).)

Here, my dear Lucy, hide these books. Quick, quick! Fling "Peregrine Pickle" under the toilette?throw "Roderick Random" into the closet?put "The Innocent Adultery" into "The Whole Duty of Man"; thrust "Lord Aimworth" under the sofa! cram "Ovid" behind the bolster; there?put "The Man of Feeling" into your pocket. Now for them.

(Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), Anglo-Irish dramatist. Lydia Languish, in The Rivals, act 1, sc. 2.)

Illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory.... There is nothing on earth so easy as to forget, if a person chooses to set about it. I'm sure I have as much forgot your poor, dear uncle, as if he had never existed?and I thought it my duty to do so.

(Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), Anglo-Irish dramatist. Mrs. Malaprop, in The Rivals, act 1, sc. 2 (1775). The first appearance of Mrs. Malaprop in the play, which is peppered with her "malapropisms." Her name is from the French, mal ? propos, or "inappropriate.")

Tis safest in matrimony to begin with a little aversion.

(Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), Anglo-Irish dramatist. Mrs. Malaprop, in The Rivals, act 1, sc. 2 (1775).)