Richard Brinsley Sheridan

"Remember that when you meet your antagonist, to do everything in a mild agreeable manner. Let your courage be keen, but, at the same time, as polished as your sword."

"He is indebted to his memory for his jests and to his imagination for his facts."

"I open with a clock striking, to beget an awful attention in the audience - it also marks the time, which is four o clock in the morning, and saves a description of the rising sun, and a great deal about gilding the eastern hemisphere."

"Conscience has no more to do with gallantry than it has with politics."

"To smile at the jest which plants a thorn in another's breast is to become a principal in the mischief."