Happiness Quote by William Congreve

Vanity gets put on trial here, and Congreve plays judge, jury, and heckler. The couplet pivots on a nasty little paradox: a woman who "likes herself" becomes intolerable to others precisely because she so openly values the traits they don’t. It’s not just narcissism; it’s social friction. Congreve is writing in a Restoration world obsessed with surfaces - wit, fashion, reputation - where self-regard is both currency and crime. To prize yourself is to announce you’re competing.

The real sting is the psychological trap: she "laughs at them" and "forgets" she’s reenacting what she claims to hate. Congreve doesn’t frame hypocrisy as a moral failing so much as a blind spot built into pride. The line "She is the thing that she despises" collapses the distance between critic and target. Her contempt becomes a mirror she refuses to look into.

Form does extra work. Those tight rhymes ("hates/prizes", "forgets/despises") snap shut like a box, mimicking the closed loop of self-justification. The pronouns are deliberately slippery: "them" could be envious onlookers, genuine critics, or the broader social chorus that polices female confidence. That ambiguity is the point. Congreve is less interested in her innocence or guilt than in the spectacle: a culture that trains people to perform disdain while secretly craving applause, then punishes them for believing their own performance.