W. s. gilbert quotes

If the jests that you crack have an orthodox smack, You may get a bland smile from these sages; But should it, by chance, be imported from France, Half-a-crown is stopped out of your wages!

Ah, pray no mistake, We are not shy; We're very wide awake The Moon and I.

I've an irritating chuckle, I've a celebrated sneer, I've an entertaining snigger, I've a fascinating leer; To everybody's prejudice I know a thing or two; I can tell a woman's age in half a minute--and I do

Deerstalking would be a very fine sport if only the deer had guns.

Utopia's quite another land; In her enterprising movements, She is England--with improvements

I shall carry to the Catacombs of Age, Photographically lined On the tablet of my mind

In the discovery of secret things and in the investigation of hidden causes, stronger reasons are obtained from sure experiments and demonstrated arguments than from probable conjectures and the opinions of philosophical speculators of the common sort.

I'm really very sorry for you all, but it's an unjust world, and virtue is triumphant only in theatrical performances.

The Law is the true embodiment of everything that's excellent; it has no kind of fault or flaw and I, my Lords, embody the Law.

I accept refreshment at any hands, however lowly.

The privilege and pleasure That we treasure beyond measure Is to run on little errands for the Ministers of State.

Bow, bow, ye lower middle classes! Bow, bow, ye tradesmen, bow, ye masses!

In all the woes that curse our race there is a lady in the case.

And that singular anomaly, the lady novelist-- I don't think she'd be missed--I'm sure she'd not be missed!

In short, whoever you may be, To this conclusion you'll agree, When every one is somebodee, Then no one's anybody!

I am the very model of a modern major general

Life's a pudding full of plums.

Oh, don't the days seem lank and long When all goes right and nothing goes wrong, And isn't your life extremely flat With nothing whatever to grumble at!

After many unhappy experiments in the direction of an ideal Republic, it was found that what may be described as a Despotism tempered by Dynamite provides, on the whole, the most satisfactory description of ruler - an autocrat who dares not abuse his autocratic power.

No one can have a higher opinion of him than I have; and I think he's a dirty little beast.

Bind up their wounds - but look the other way.

When everyone is somebody, then no one's anybody.

poverty is obsolete and hunger is abolished

My family pride is something inconceivable. I can't help it. I was born sneering.

I am a child of Nature, and take after my mother.

Faint heart never won fair lady! Nothing venture, nothing win Blood is thick, but water's thin In for a penny, in for a pound It's Love that makes the world go 'round!

A man is but an ass Who fights in a cuirass

Things are seldom what they seem.

It's love that makes the world go round.

So I fell in love with a rich attorney's Elderly ugly daughter.

Love, unrequited, robs me of my rest: Love, hopeless love, my ardent soul encumbers: Love, nightmare-like, lies heavy on my chest, And weaves itself into my midnight slumbers!

Though I'm anything but clever, I could talk like that forever.

Wherever valor true is found, true modesty will there abound.

I see no objection to stoutness, in moderation.

Darwinian man, though well-behaved, at best is only a monkey shaved.

When the enterprising burglar isn't burgling; When the cut-throat isn't occupied in crime; He loves to hear the little brook a-gurgling; And listen to the merry village chime.

No good play is a success; fine writing and high morals are useless on the stage. I have been scribbling twaddle for thirty-five years to suit the public taste, and I should know.

If you give me your attention, I will tell you what I am: I'm a genuine philanthropist--all other kinds are sham. Each little fault of temper and each social defect In my erring fellow creatures, I endeavor to correct.

Roll on, thou ball, roll on! Through pathless realms of Space, Roll on!

There's fish in the sea, no doubt of it, As good as ever came out of it.

When in that House MPs divide/If they've a brain and cerebellum, too/They've got to leave that brain outside/And vote just as their leaders tell 'em to.

Is life a boon? If so, it must befall That Death, whene'er he call, Must call too soon.

Life is a joke that's just begun.

Oh, I am a cook and a captain bold, And the mate of the Nancybrig, And a bos'sun tight, and a midshipmite, And the crew of the captain's gig!

Who knows but we may count among our intellectual chickens Like them an Earl of Thackeray and p'raps a Duke of Dickens

He did nothing in particular, and did it very well.

When Wellington thrashed Bonaparte, As every child can tell, The House of Peers, throughout the war, Did nothing in particular, And did it very well

If I can wheedle A knife or a needle, Why not a Silver Churn?

Isn't your life extremely flat,With nothing to grumble at?

The idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone, All centuries but this, and every country but his own.

On my face extended flat I was walloped with a cat For listening at the key-hole of the door.

Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.

Life's perhaps the only riddle That we shrink from giving up.

The happiest hour a sailor sees Is when he's down At an inland town, With his Nancy on his knees, yo ho! And his arm around her waist!

Strike the concertina's melancholy string! Blow the spirit-stirring harp like any thing! Let the piano's martial blast Rouse the Echoes of the Past

For duty, duty must be done; The rule applies to everyone.

Let the punishment fit the crime.

Oh! a private buffoon is a light-hearted loon, If you listen to popular rumour; From morning to night he's so joyous and bright, And he bubbles with wit and good humour!

I love my fellow creatures - I do all the good I can - yet everybody says I'm such a disagreeable man!

Spurn not the nobly born with love affected; nor treat with virtuous scorn the well connected.

When you are lying awake with a dismal headache, and repose is tabooed by anxiety, I conceive you may use any language you choose to indulge in without impropriety.

I'm very good at integral and differential calculus, I know the scientific names of beings animalculous; In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral, I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

If your master is surly, from getting up early (And tempers are short in the morning), An inopportune joke is enough to provoke Him to give you, at once, a month's warning.

What though I cannot meet my bills? What though I suffer toothache's ills? What though I swallow countless pills?

He led his regiment from behind. He found it less exciting.

If you're anxious to shine in the high aesthetic line as a man of culture rare, you must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms, and plant them everywhere.

Oh, wouldn't the world seem dull and flat with nothing whatever to grumble at?

I am a courtier grave and serious Who is about to kiss your hand: Try to combine a pose imperious With a demeanour nobly bland.

Man is nature's sole mistake.

I know everybody's income and what everybody earns, And I carefully compare it with the income-tax returns

When every blessed thing you have is made of silver, or of gold, you long for simple pewter.

I often think it's comical How Nature always does contrive That every boy and every gal That's born into the world alive Is either a little Liberal Or else a little Conservative!

Society has quite forsaken all her wicked courses, Which empties our police courts, and abolishes divorces.

All bayonets are bad.

It is a glorious thing To be a Pirate King.

It isn't so much what's on the table that matters, as what's on the chairs.

It's true I've got no shirts to wear; It's true my butcher's bill is due; It's true my prospects all look blue - But don't let that unsettle you.

There's a fascination frantic in a ruin that's romantic.

every Jack He must study the knack If he wants to make sure of his Jill!

You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases of complicated state of mind. The meaning doesn't matter if it's only idle chatter of a transcendental kind.

A policeman's lot is not a happy one

Then a sentimental passion of a vegetable fashion must excite your languid spleen, An attachment a la Plato for a bashful young potato, or a not-too-French French bean!

I am, in point of fact, a particularly haughty and exclusive person, of pre-Adamite ancestral descent. You will understand this when I tell you that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule.

To sit in solemn silence on a dull, dark dock in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp shock from a cheap and chippy chopper on a big, black block.

Saturday afternoon, although occurring at regular and well-foreseen intervals, always takes this railway by surprise.

I am the very model of a modern Major-General, I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral, I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical, From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical.

A popular speaker, however unpopular and insignificant, has only to wind up his speech with half-a-dozen lines of Shakespeare (and to make it clearly understood that they are Shakespeare's) and he will sit down amid thunders of applause.

I am the Captain of the Pinafore ; And a right good captain too! . . . . And I'm never, never sick at sea! What, never? No, never! What never? Hardly ever! He's hardly ever sick at sea! Then give three cheers, and one cheer more, For the hardy Captain of the Pinafore!

When a felon s not engaged in his employment, Or maturing his felonious little plans, His capacity for innocent enjoyment Is just as great as any honest mans.

My object all sublime I shall achieve in time- To let the punishment fit the crime- The punishment fit the crime.

I always voted at my party's call, and I never thought of thinking for myself at all.

See how the Fates their gifts allot, For A is happy-B is not. Yet B is worthy, I dare say, Of more prosperity than A.

As is gloriously sung in the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta "H.M.S. Pinafore," in the words of W. S. Gilbert: "Things are seldom as they seem, Skim milk masquerades as cream."

Posterity will know as little of me as I know of posterity.

Posterity shall know of me even less than I shall know of posterity.

Bless your heart, they don't mind--they're exceedingly kind-- They don't blame you--as long as you're funny!