Douglas william jerrold quotes

In this world truth can wait; she is used to it.

Happiness grows at our own firesides, and is not to be picked in strangers' gardens.

As for the brandy, "nothing extenuate"; and the water, put nought in in malice.

Wits, like drunken men with swords, are apt to draw their steel upon their best acquaintances.

Women, somehow, have the same fear of witty men as of fireworks.

Troubles are like babies - they only grow by nursing.

The only athletic sport I ever mastered was backgammon.

There are a good many pious people who are as careful of their religion as of their best service of china, only using it on holy occasions, for fear it should get chipped or flawed in working-day wear.

Habitual intoxication is the epitome of every crime.

Earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest.

That man is thought a dangerous knave, Or zealot plotting crime, Who for advancement of his kind Is wiser than his time.

Even the worse of jobs has their pleasures, if I were a grave digger or a hangmen, there are some people I could work for with a great deal of enjoyment.

Fortunes made in no time are like shirts made in no time; it's ten to one if they hang long together.

Grumblers deserve to be operated upon surgically; their trouble is usually chronic.

There are some people as obtuse in recognizing an argument as they are in appreciating wit. You couldn't drive it into their heads with a hammer.

A man never so beautifully shows his own strength as when he respects a woman's softness.

Modesty is a bright dish-cover, which makes us fancy there is something very nice underneath it.

Marriage is like wine. It is not be properly judged until the second glass.

A creature undefiled by the taint of the world, unvexed by its injustice, unwearied by its hollow pleasures; a being fresh from the source of light, with something of its universal lustre in it. If childhood be this, how holy the duty to see that in its onward growth it shall be no other!

Luck, mere luck may make even madness wisdom.

It takes all sorts of people to make a world.

What a fine-looking thing is war! Yet, dress it as we may, dress and feather it, daub it with gold, huzza it, and sing swaggering songs about it,--what is it, nine times out of ten, but murder in uniform!

Wishes, at least, are the easy pleasures of the poor.

Quality, not quantity, is my measure.

Self-defense is the clearest of all laws; and for this reason - the lawyers didn't make it.

Nothing is so beneficial to a young author as the advice of a man whose judgment stands constitutionally at the freezing-point.

If an earthquake were to engulf England tomorrow, the English would manage to meet and dine somewhere among the rubbish, just to celebrate the event.

Literature, like a gypsy, to be picturesque, should be a little ragged.

A man is in no danger so long as he talks his love; but to write it is to impale himself on his own pothooks.

Patience is the strongest of strong drinks; for it kills the giant despair.

Love the sea? I dote upon it--from the beach.

A man, so to speak, who is not able to bow to his own conscience every morning is hardly in a condition to respectfully salute the world at any other time of the day.

Keep your eyes and ears open, if you desire to get on in the world.

The sharp employ the sharp.

O this itch of the ear, that breaks out at the tongue! Were not curiosity so over-busy, detraction would soon be starved to death.

Some people are so fond of ill luck that they run halfway to meet it.

I would like to have a second chance at my first love.

Wit, like money, bears an extra value when rung down immediately it is wanted. Men pay severely who require credit.

That questionable superfluity small beer.

He is one of those wise philanthropists who, in a time of famine, would vote for nothing but a supply of toothpicks.

Malice blunts the point of wit.

The blackest of fluid is used as an agent to enlighten the world.

We love peace, as we abhor pusillanimity; but not peace at any price.

A coquette is like a recruiting sergeant, always on the lookout for fresh victims.

I never hear the rattling of dice that it does not sound to me like the funeral bell of the whole family.

If slander be a snake, it is a winged one - it flies as well as creeps.

Don't buy a single vote more than necessary.

God said, "Let us make man in our image." Man said, 'Let us make God in our image.

After all there is something about a wedding-gown prettier than in any other gown in the world.

Etiquette has no regard for moral qualities.

Rogues are prone to find things before they are lost.

Jewels! It's my belief that when woman was made, jewels were invented only to make her the more mischievous.

We are all slaves to the shining metal.

There is peace more destructive of the manhood of living man than war is destructive of his material body.

Some of 'em [virtues] like extinct volcanoes, with a strong memory or fire and brimstone.

The best thing I know between France and England is the sea.

Gravity is more suggestive than convincing.

Humor is the harmony of the heart.

Man owes two solemn debts--one to society, and one to-nature. It is only when he pays the second that he covers the first.

Duty, though set about by thorns, may still be made a staff supporting even while it tortures. Cast it away, and, like the prophet's wand, it changes to a snake.

The sharp employ the sharp; verily, a man may be known by his attorney.

A piece of simple goodness--a letter gushing from the heart; a beautiful unstudied vindication of the worth and untiring sweetness of human nature--a record of the invulnerability of man, armed with high purpose, sanctified by truth.

Reputations, like beavers and cloaks, shall last some people twice the time of others.

Virtue is a beautiful thing in woman when they don't go about with it like a child with a drum making all sorts of noise with it.

What women would do if they could not cry, nobody knows. What poor, defenceless creatures they would be!

Slugs crawl and crawl over our cabbages, like the world's slander over a good name. You may kill them, it is true; but there is the slime.

A conservative is a man who will not look at the new moon out of respect for that 'ancient institution' the old one.

Nature designed us to be of good cheer.

A pill that the present moment is daily bread to thousands.

Not peace at any price! Chains are worse than bayonets.

The language of women should be luminous, but not voluminous.

He who owns the soil, owns up to the sky.

Dogmation is puppyism come to its full growth.

Fix yourself upon the wealthy. In a word, take this for a golden rule through life: Never, never have a friend that is poorer than yourself.

He was so benevolent, so merciful a man that, in his mistaken passion, he would have held an umbrella over a duck in a shower of rain.

Intemperance is the epitome of every crime, the cause of every kind of misery.

Religion is in the heart, not in the knees.

A blessed companion is a book! A book that, fitly chosen, is a life-long friend. A book — the unfailing Damon to his loving Pythias. A book that — at a touch — pours its heart into our own.