The School for Scandal quotes

Yes, my dear Snake; and I am no hypocrite to deny the satisfaction I reap from the success of my efforts.

Wounded myself, in the early part of my life, by the envenomed tongue of slander, I confess I have since known no pleasure to equal to the reducing others to the level of my own reputation.

Nothing can be more natural. But, Lady Sneerwell, there is one affair in which you have lately employed me, wherein, I confess, I am at a loss to guess your motives.

Nay, but we should make allowance; Sir Benjamin is a wit and a poet.

For my part, I own madam, wit loses its respect with me, when I see it in company with malice.

What do you think, Mr. Surface?

Oh Maria! child—what, is the whole affair off between you and Charles?—His extravagance, I presume—the town talks of nothing else.

I am very sorry, ma’am, the town has so little to do.

True, true, child: but there’s no stopping people’s tongues. I own I was hurt to hear it, as I indeed was to learn, from the same quarter, that your guardian, Sir Peter, and Lady Teazle have not agreed lately so well as could be wished.

A room in Sir Peter Teazle’s house.

When an old bachelor marries a young wife, what is he to expect?

’Tis now six months since Lady Teazle made me the happiest of men—and I have been the most miserable dog ever since! We tifted a little going to church, and fairly quarrelled before the bells had done ringing.

When an old bachelor marries a young wife, what is he to expect? ’Tis now six months since Lady Teazle made me the happiest of men—and I have been the most miserable dog ever since!

We tifted a little going to church, and fairly quarrelled before the bells had done ringing.

I was more than once nearly choked with gall during the honeymoon, and had lost all comfort in life before my friends had done wishing me joy.

Nay, I’m sure, Sir Peter, your lady can’t be the cause of your uneasiness.

Why, has anybody told you she was dead?

Come, come, Sir Peter, you love her, notwithstanding your tempers don’t exactly agree.

But the fault is entirely hers, Master Rowley.

I am, myself, the sweetest-tempered man alive, and hate a teasing temper; and so I tell her a hundred times a day.

Ay; and what is very extraordinary, in all our disputes she is always in the wrong!

But the fault is entirely hers, Master Rowley. I am, myself, the sweetest-tempered man alive, and hate a teasing temper; and so I tell her a hundred times a day.

Ay; and what is very extraordinary, in all our disputes she is always in the wrong!

But Lady Sneerwell, and the set she meets at her house, encourage the perverseness of her disposition.—Then, to complete my vexation, Maria, my ward, whom I ought to have the power of a father over, is determined to turn rebel too, and absolutely refuses the …

And am I to blame, Sir Peter, because flowers are dear in cold weather? You should find fault with the climate, and not with me.

For my part, I’m sure I wish it was spring all the year round, and that roses grew under our feet!

Oons! madam—if you had been born to this, I shouldn’t wonder at your talking thus; but you forget what your situation was when I married you.

And am I to blame, Sir Peter, because flowers are dear in cold weather?

You should find fault with the climate, and not with me.

For my part, I’m sure I wish it was spring all the year round, and that roses grew under our feet!

She has a charming fresh colour.

Yes, when it is fresh put on.

O, fie! I’ll swear her colour is natural: I have seen it come and go!

Now positively you wrong her; fifty-two or fifty-three is the utmost—and I don’t think she looks more.

Ah! there’s no judging by her looks, unless one could see her face.

Well, well, if Mrs. Evergreen does take some pains to repair the ravages of time, you must allow she effects it with great ingenuity; and surely that’s better than the careless manner in which the widow Ochre caulks her wrinkles.

Ah, madam, true wit is more nearly allied to good-nature than your ladyship is aware of.

True, Sir Peter: I believe they are so near akin that they can never be united.

Or rather, madam, suppose them man and wife, because one seldom sees them together.

Your ladyship must excuse me; I’m called away by particular business.

But I leave my character behind me.

Well—certainly Lady Teazle, that lord of yours is a strange being: I could tell you some stories of him would make you laugh heartily if he were not your husband.

A curious dilemma, truly, my politics have run me into! I wanted, at first, only to ingratiate myself with Lady Teazle, that she might not be my enemy with Maria; and I have, I don’t know how, become her serious lover.

Sincerely I begin to wish I had never made such a point of gaining so very good a character, for it has led me into so many cursed rogueries that I doubt I shall be exposed at last.

A room in Sir Peter Teazle’s house.

But you must not rally him on the subject, Sir Oliver; ’tis a tender point. I assure you, though he has been married only seven months.

Then he has been just half a year on the stool of repentance!

—Poor Peter! But you say he has entirely given up Charles—never sees him, hey?

Well, well, you’ll be convinced when you know him. ’Tis edification to hear him converse; he professes the noblest sentiments.

Oh, plague of his sentiments! If he salutes me with a scrap of morality in his mouth, I shall be sick directly.

But, however, don’t mistake me, Sir Peter; I don’t mean to defend Charles’s errors: but, before I form my judgment of either of them, I intend to make a trial of their hearts; and my friend Rowley and I have planned something for the purpose.

And don’t, Sir Peter, be so severe against your old friend’s son. Odds my life! I am not sorry that he has run out of the course a little: for my part,

I hate to see prudence clinging to the green suckers of youth; ’tis like ivy round a sapling, and spoils the growth of the tree.

If you please.

I’m sure I don’t care how soon we leave off quarrelling, provided you’ll own you were tired first.

Well—then let our future contest be, who shall be most obliging.

Plagues and tortures! Can’t I make her angry either! Oh, I am the most miserable fellow!

But I’ll not bear her presuming to keep her temper: no! she may break my heart, but she shan’t keep her temper.

A room in Charles Surface’s house.

What! you wouldn’t train a horse for the course by keeping him from corn? For my part, egad, I am never so successful as when I am a little merry: let me throw on a bottle of champagne, and I never lose.

At least I never feel my losses, which is exactly the same thing.

And then, what man can pretend to be a believer in love, who is an abjurer of wine? ’Tis the test by which the lover knows his own heart.

And then, what man can pretend to be a believer in love, who is an abjurer of wine? ’Tis the test by which the lover knows his own heart.

Fill a dozen bumpers to a dozen beauties, and she that floats at the top is the maid that has bewitched you.

Now then, Charles, be honest, and give us your real favourite.

Pshaw! have done. Sir, my friend Moses is a very honest fellow, but a little slow at expression: he’ll be an hour giving us our titles. Mr. Premium, the plain state of the matter is this:

I am an extravagant young fellow who wants to borrow money; you I take to be a prudent old fellow, who have got money to lend.

I am blockhead enough to give fifty percent sooner than not have it; and you, I presume, are rogue enough to take a hundred if you can get it.

he’ll be an hour giving us our titles. Mr. Premium, the plain state of the matter is this: I am an extravagant young fellow who wants to borrow money; you I take to be a prudent old fellow, who have got money to lend.

I am blockhead enough to give fifty percent sooner than not have it; and you, I presume, are rogue enough to take a hundred if you can get it.

Now, sir, you see we are acquainted at once, and may proceed to business without farther ceremony.

Yes, indeed! You know I always speak the truth, and scorn to tell a lie!

Right. People that speak truth generally do.

But these are trifles, Mr. Premium. What! I know money isn’t to be bought without paying for ’t!

Well, but what security could you give? You have no land, I suppose?

Not a molehill, nor a twig, but what’s in the bough-pots out of the window!

Nor any stock, I presume?

Yes, yes, so it was—vastly too much so for a private gentleman. For my part,

I was always of a communicative disposition, so I thought it a shame to keep so much knowledge to myself.

Aside. Mercy upon me! learning that had run in the family like an heirloom—Aloud. Pray, what are become of the books?

Oh, have with you, if that’s the case.

I can handle a hammer as well as a dice-box!

Going! going!

Oh, yes, I do, vastly! Ha! ha! ha! yes, yes, I think it a rare joke to sell one’s family by auction—ha! ha!—Aside. Oh, the prodigal!

To be sure! when a man wants money, where the plague should he get assistance, if he can’t make free with his own relations?

I’ll never forgive him; never! never!

So! this was an odd old fellow, indeed.—Let me see, two-thirds of this is mine by right, five hundred and thirty odd pounds. ’Fore Heaven!

I find one’s ancestors are more valuable relations than I took them for!

—Ladies and gentlemen, your most obedient and very grateful servant.—Bows ceremoniously to the pictures.

Be just before you’re generous.—Why, so I would if I could; but

Justice is an old, hobbling beldame, and I can’t get her to keep pace with Generosity, for the soul of me.

Yet, Charles, believe me, one hour’s reflection—

An infallible one, believe me.

Prudence, like experience, must be paid for.

Why, if my understanding were once convinced—

Oh, certainly, madam, your understanding should be convinced. Yes, yes—Heaven forbid I should persuade you to do anything you thought wrong. No, no, I have too much honour to desire it.

Don’t you think we may as well leave honour out of the argument?

Rises.

I dare say you must, certainly, when you want to find anything in a hurry.

Ay, or to hide anything in a hurry either.

Aside.

For not one word of it, Sir Peter!

How! don’t you think it worth while to agree in the lie?

There is not one syllable of truth in what that gentleman has told you.

Aside to Lady Teazle. ’Sdeath, madam, will you betray me?

Good Mr. Hypocrite, by your leave, I’ll speak for myself.

Ay, let her alone, sir; you’ll find she’ll make out a better story than you, without prompting.

You are too rash, Sir Peter; you shall hear me. The man who shuts out conviction by refusing to—

Oh, damn your sentiments!

Exeunt Sir Peter and Joseph Surface, talking.

This is one bad effect of a good character; it invites application from the unfortunate, and there needs no small degree of address to gain the reputation of benevolence without incurring the expense.

The silver ore of pure charity is an expensive article in the catalogue of a man’s good qualities; whereas the sentimental French plate I use instead of it makes just as good a show, and pays no tax.

Mr. Surface, your servant: I was apprehensive of interrupting you, though my business demands immediate attention, as this note will inform you.

Oh, he’s a model for the young men of the age.—But how’s this, Sir Peter? you don’t join us in your friend Joseph’s praise, as I expected.

Sir Oliver, we live in a damned wicked world, and the fewer we praise the better.

What! do you say so, Sir Peter, who were never mistaken in your life?

No, but she has left the door of that room open, you perceive. See, she is in tears.

Certainly, a little mortification appears very becoming in a wife.

Don’t you think it will do her good to let her pine a little?

Hold, Master Rowley!

If you have any regard for me, never let me hear you utter anything like a sentiment: I have had enough of them to serve me the rest of my life.

The library in Joseph Surface’s house.

Are you not the cause of it? Had you not a sufficient field for your roguery in imposing upon Sir Peter, and supplanting your brother, but you must endeavour to seduce his wife?

I hate such an avarice of crimes; ’tis an unfair monopoly, and never prospers.

Well, I admit I have been to blame. I confess I deviated from the direct road of wrong, but I don’t think we’re so totally defeated neither.

Snake in this manner, to impose on us all, that I know not what to say: however, lest her revengeful spirit should prompt her to injure my brother, I had certainly better follow her directly. For the man who attempts to—

Moral to the last drop!

Ay, and marry her, Joseph, if you can. Oil and Vinegar!—egad, you’ll do very well together.

Ah, sir, consider—I live by the badness of my character;

I have nothing but my infamy to depend on!

and, if it were once known that I had been I betrayed into an honest action, I should lose every friend I have in the world.

Ay, honest Rowley always said you would reform.

Why, as to reforming, Sir Peter, I’ll make no promises, and that I take to be a proof I intend to set about it.

But here shall be my monitor—my gentle guide.—Ah! can I leave the virtuous path those eyes illumine? Though thou, dear maid, shouldst waive thy beauty’s sway, Thou still must rule, because I will obey: