Aphra Behn Quotations

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

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

Love ceases to be a pleasure, when it ceases to be a secret.

There is no sinner like a young saint.

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

Money speaks sense in a language all nations understand.

Faith, Sir, we are here today and gone tomorrow.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Dear me no Dears, Sir ...

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

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

You may make love in dancing as well as sitting.

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

'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!

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

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.

No friend to Love like a long voyage at sea.

Jealousy, the old worm that bites.

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

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

Tis Love alone can make our fetters please.

Come away; poverty's catching.

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

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

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

God makes all things good; Man meddles with 'em and they become evil.

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.

Of all that writ, he was the wisest bard, who spoke this mighty truth- He that knew all that ever learning writ, Knew only this-that he knew nothing yet.

time lessens all extremes and reduces 'em to mediums and unconcern ...

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.

Variety is the soul of pleasure.

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.