Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridanwas an Irish satirist; a playwright and poet, and long-term owner of the London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. He is known for his plays such as The Rivals, The School for Scandal, The Duenna and A Trip to Scarborough. For thirty-two years he was also a Whig MP in the British House of Commons for Stafford, Westminsterand Ilchester. He is buried at Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey. His plays remain a central part of the canon, and...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth30 October 1751
CountryIreland
Self confidence is the ground stone of success
Give them a corrupt House of Lords, give them a venal House of Commons, give they a tyrannical Prince, give them a truckling court, and let me have but an unfettered press. I will defy them to encroach a hair's breadth upon the liberties of England.
Our ancestors are very good kind of folks; but they are the last people I should choose to have a visiting acquaintance with.
She's as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile.
To smile at the jest which plants a thorn in another's breast is to become a principal in the mischief.
A circulating library in a town is as an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge.
Tale-bearers are as bad as the tale-makers.
The Right Honourable gentleman is indebted to his memory for his jests, and to his imagination for his facts.
You write with ease, to show your breeding, But easy writing's vile hard reading.
I was struck all on a heap.
Illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory.
'Tis safest in matrimony to begin with a little aversion.
He is the very pineapple of politeness.
An aspersion upon my parts of speech!