George Farquhar

George Farquhar.

George Farquhar (1678 – April 29, 1707) was an Irish dramatist.

Quotes

• Poetry’s a mere drug, Sir.
  • Love and a Bottle (1698), Act iii, Sc. 2.

• I hate all that don’t love me, and slight all that do.
  • The Constant Couple (1699), Lure, Act i, Sc. 2.

• Crimes, like Virtues, are their own Rewards.
  • The Inconstant (1702), Ori, Act iv, Sc. 2.

• Cos. Pray now, what may be that same bed of honour?
  Kite. Oh, a mighty large bed! bigger by half than the great bed at Ware: ten thousand people may lie in it together, and never feel one another.
  • The Recruiting Officer (1706), Act i. Sc. 1.

• Hanging and marriage, you know, go by destiny.
  • The Recruiting Officer (1706), Braz, Act iii, Sc. 2.

• [T]hose who know the least, obey the best.
  • The Recruiting Officer (1706), Act iv. Sc. 1.

• Sir, you shall taste my Anno Domini.
  • The Beaux’ Stratagem (1707), Bon, Act i, Sc. 1.

• There is no scandal like rags, nor any crime so shameful as poverty.
  • The Beaux’ Stratagem (1707), Arch, Act i, Sc. 1.

• I believe they talked of me, for they laughed consumedly.
  • The Beaux’ Stratagem (1707), Act iii. Sc. 1.

• ’T was for the good of my country that I should be abroad.
  • The Beaux’ Stratagem (1707), Act iii. Sc. 2. Compare: "Leaving his country for his country’s sake", Fitz-Geffrey, The Life and Death of Sir Francis Drake (1596), stanza 213.; "True patriots all; for, be it understood, / We left our country for our country’s good", George Barrington, Prologue written for the opening of the Play-house at New South Wales, Jan. 16, 1796. New South Wales, p. 152.

• Necessity, the mother of invention.
  • The Twin Rivals (1702), Act i. Compare: "Necessity is the mother of invention", Wycherly, Love in a Wood (1672), act iii. sc. 3.; "Art imitates Nature, and necessity is the mother of invention", Richard Franck, Northern Memoirs (written in 1658, printed in 1694); "Magister artis ingenique largitor Venter" (translated: "Hunger is the teacher of the arts and the bestower of invention"), Persius, Prolog., line 10.