Aphra Behn Quotes

Aphra Behn shares witty, romantic thoughts on love and life that feel like a playful, daring whisper.

27 quotes

1. No friend to Love like a long voyage at sea.

2. There's no sinner like a young saint.

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

4. Variety is the soul of pleasure.

5. Come away; poverty's catching.

6. Money speaks sense in a language all nations understand.

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

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

9. Faith, sir, we are here today, and gone tomorrow.

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

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

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

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

14. :that perfect Tranquillity of Life, which is no where to be found, but in retreat, a faithful Friend and a good Library:

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

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

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

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

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

20. 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.

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

22. 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.

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

24. '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!

25. 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.

26. 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.

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