Colley Cibber
Overview
Colley Cibber (ˈ; 6 November 1671 – 11 December 1757) was an English actor-manager
Actor-manager
An actor-manager is a leading actor who sets up their own permanent theatrical company and manages the company's business and financial arrangements, sometimes taking over the management of a theatre, to perform plays of their own choice and in which they will usually star...

, playwright and Poet Laureate. His colourful memoir Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber (1740) describes his life in a personal, anecdotal and even rambling style. He wrote 25 plays for his own company at Drury Lane
Drury Lane
Drury Lane is a street on the eastern boundary of the Covent Garden area of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. The northern part is in the borough of Camden and the southern part in the City of Westminster....

, half of which were adapted from various sources, which led Robert Lowe and Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...

, among others, to criticise his "miserable mutilation" of "crucified Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...

 [and] hapless Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

".
Quotations

Prithee don’t screw your wit beyond the compass of good manners.

Love's Last Shift, Act II, sc. i (1696)

We shall find no fiend in hell can match the fury of a disappointed woman,—scorned, slighted, dismissed without a parting pang.

Love's Last Shift, Act IV (1696). Compare: "Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd, Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd", William Congreve, The Mourning Bride (1697), Act III, scene viii (often paraphrased: "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned").

Possession is eleven points in the law.

Woman's Wit, Act I (1697)

Words are but empty thanks.

Woman's Wit, Act V (1697)

Our hours in love have wings; in absence, crutches.

Xerxes, Act IV, sc. iii (1699)

The aspiring youth that fired the Ephesian domeOutlives in fame the pious fool that rais’d it.

Richard III (altered), Act III, sc. i (1700)

Off with his head—; so much for Buckingham.

Richard III (altered), Act IV, sc. iii (1700)

Perish that thought! No, never be it saidThat Fate itself could awe the soul of Richard.Hence, babbling dreams! you threaten here in vain!Conscience, avaunt! Richard ’s himself again!Hark! the shrill trumpet sounds to horse! away!My soul ’s in arms, and eager for the fray.

Richard III (altered), Act V, sc. iii (1700)

This business will never hold water.

She Wou'd and She Wou'd Not, Act IV (1703)

Old houses mended,Cost little less than new before they're ended.

The Double Gallant, prologue (1707)

 
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