"Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing."

William Congreve Literature See all quotes by William Congreve →

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“Retired to their tea and scandal, according to their ancient custom.”

“I came up stairs into the world, for I was born in a cellar.”

“They come together like the Coroner's Inquest, to sit upon the murdered reputations of the week.”

“Thou liar of the first magnitude.”

“It is the business of a comic poet to paint the vices and follies of human kind.”

“Eternity was in that moment.”

Resonant Thoughts

"Economic life, as always, is a matrix in which result becomes cause and cause becomes result."

— John Kenneth Galbraith

Politics1908–2006

#life

"I've always wanted to be an expert on tadpoles. I've always fancied being a tadpole expert. It's a wonderful life if you become an experty tadpoleous, as they are known in the trade. You get invited t…"

— Peter Cook

Entertainment1937–1995

#life

"I have known fellows to whom the earth was so full of little pleasures that after the worst clouts they rose like larks from a furrow. A wise philosophy—but I had none of it. I always saw the little p…"

— John Buchan

Politics1875–1940

#life