Life's Pleasures Quote by William Wycherley

Wycherley lands a joke that still stings because it’s less about dinner than about entitlement. The line is built like a genial observation, almost folksy, then it pivots on the moral trapdoor: “another man’s meat” is literal food and a shorthand for any benefit taken on someone else’s tab. “Most heartily” does the real work. It’s not that people accept freebies; they relish them, with an appetite that grows in direct proportion to their lack of responsibility. The comedy comes from how quickly we recognize the type and, uncomfortably, how easily we might become it.

As a Restoration dramatist, Wycherley is writing for a culture of conspicuous consumption and elaborate social games, where patronage, gift economies, and public displays of wit were currencies as real as coin. His plays skewer the polite veneer of manners that masks predation. This line carries that worldview in miniature: social life is a buffet, and the hungriest diners are often the ones least inclined to pick up the check.

The subtext is cynicism dressed as common sense: gratitude is unreliable; self-interest is dependable. It’s also a sly jab at moral hypocrisy. People can be scrupulous about small debts while casually devouring the larger, less visible ones - the favors, the inheritances, the “invitations” that aren’t really invitations. Wycherley doesn’t preach; he needles. The laugh arrives because the phrasing makes exploitation sound like natural human digestion, and that’s precisely the accusation.