Aphra Behn Quotes

#1. He knew almost as much as if he had read much.

Aphra Behn

#2. Time lessens all extremes and reduces 'em to mediums and unconcern ...

Aphra Behn

#3. But time lessens all extremes, & reduces them to mediums & unconcern.

Aphra Behn

#4. And did with sighs their fate deplore,
Since I must shelter them no more;
And if before my joys were such,
In having heard, and seen too much,
My grief must be as great and high,
When all abandoned I shall be,
Doomed to a silent destiny.

Aphra Behn

#5. Possessed with a thousand thoughts of past joys

Aphra Behn

#6. Love, like reputation, once fled, never returns more.

Aphra Behn

#7. A brave world, sir, full of religion, knavery, and change: we shall shortly see better days.

Aphra Behn

#8. Love ceases to be a pleasure when it ceases to be a secret.

Aphra Behn

#9. Women in London are like the rich silks; they are out of fashion a great while before they wear out.

Aphra Behn

#10. Come away; poverty's catching.

Aphra Behn

#11. For thou hast made a very fiend of me, and I have hell within.

Aphra Behn

#12. You may make love in dancing as well as sitting.

Aphra Behn

#13. All I ask, is the privilege for my masculine part the poet in me ... If I must not, because of my sex, have this freedom ... I lay down my quill and you shall hear no more of me.

Aphra Behn

#14. He that knew all that learning ever writ, Knew only this - that he knew nothing yet.

Aphra Behn

#15. Patience is a flatterer, sir, and an ass, sir.

Aphra Behn

#16. But time lessens all extremes, & reduces them to mediums & unconcern.

Aphra Behn

#17. One hour of right-down love is worth an age of dully living on.

Aphra Behn

#18. Kings that made laws, first broke 'em ...

Aphra Behn

#19. Here lies a Proof that Wit can never be
Defence enough against Mortality

Aphra Behn

#20. A man of wit could not be a knave or villain.

Aphra Behn

#21. Fantastic fortune thou deceitful light,
That cheats the weary traveler by night,
Though on a precipice each step you tread,
I am resolved to follow where you lead.

Aphra Behn

#22. There is no sinner like a young saint.

Aphra Behn

#23. Oh, what a dear ravishing thing is the beginning of an Amour!

Aphra Behn

#24. As love is the most noble and divine passion of the soul, so is it that to which we may justly attribute all the real satisfactions of life, and without it, man is unfinished, and unhappy.

Aphra Behn

#25. Money speaks sense in a language all nations understand.

Aphra Behn

#26. No friend to Love like a long voyage at sea.

Aphra Behn

#27. That perfect tranquility of life, which is nowhere to be found but in retreat, a faithful friend and a good library.

Aphra Behn

#28. Where there is no novelty, there can be no curiosity.

Aphra Behn

#29. I value fame as much as if I had been born a Hero.

Aphra Behn

#30. Nothing is more capable of troubling our reason, and consuming our health, than secret notions of jealousy in solitude.

Aphra Behn

#31. Dear me no Dears, Sir ...

Aphra Behn

#32. 'Twas but a dream, yet by my heart I knew, Which still was panting, part of it was true: Oh how I strove the rest to have believed; Ashamed and angry to be undeceived!

Aphra Behn

#33. Jealousy, the old worm that bites.

Aphra Behn

#34. I think a Play the best divertisement that wise men have: but I do also think them nothing so who do discourse so formallie about the rules of it, as if 'twere the grand affair of humane life.

Aphra Behn

#35. Affectation hath always had a greater share both in the action and discourse of men than truth and judgment have ...

Aphra Behn

#36. Each moment of a happy love's hour is worth an age of dull and common life.

Aphra Behn

#37. Sure, I rose the wrong way today, I have had such damn'd ill luck every way.

Aphra Behn

#38. He that will live in this World, must be endu'd with the three rare Qualities of Dissimulation, Equivocation, and mental Reservation.

Aphra Behn

#39. A poet is a painter in his way, he draws to the life, but in another kind; we draw the nobler part, the soul and the mind; the pictures of the pen shall outlast those of the pencil, and even worlds themselves.

Aphra Behn

#40. Tis Love alone can make our fetters please.

Aphra Behn

#41. Who is't that to woman's beauty would submit,
And yet refuse the fetters of their wit?

Aphra Behn

#42. Love's a thin Diet, nor will keep out Cold.

Aphra Behn

#43. Variety is the soul of pleasure.

Aphra Behn

#44. Faith, sir, we are here today, and gone tomorrow.

Aphra Behn