John Gay Quotes

Can love be controll'd by advice?

Learning by study must be won; 'Twas ne'er entail'd from son to son.

A man is always afraid of a woman that loves him too much

How happy could I be with either, Were t'other dear charmer away!

You can only be called a hypocrite if you judge others first.

One common fate we both must prove; You die with envy, I with love.

Do you think your mother and I should have lived comfortably so long together, if ever we had been married? Baggage!

The comfortable estate of widowhood is the only hope that keeps up a wife's spirits.

Thus shadow owes its birth to light.

I must have women - there is nothing unbends the mind like them.

To shoot at crows is powder flung away.

She who has never lov'd, has never liv'd.

Praising all alike, is praising none.

Envy's a sharper spur than pay: No author ever spar'd a brother; Wits are gamecocks to one another.

Lest men suspect your tale untrue, Keep probability in view.

On the choice of friends, Our good or evil name depends.

So comes a reck'ning when the banquet's o'er, The dreadful reckn'ning, and men smile no more.

But his kiss was so sweet, and so closely he pressed, that I languished and pined till I granted the rest.

Were I laid on Greenland's Coast, And in my Arms embrac'd my Lass; Warm amidst eternal Frost, Too soon the Half Year's Night would pass.

In love we are all fools alike.

Envy is a kind of praise.

Look round, the wrecks of play behold; Estates dismember'd, mortgaged, sold! Their owners now to jails confin'd, Show equal poverty of mind.

An open foe may prove a curse, but a pretended friend is worse.

Twas when the seas were roaring With hollow blasts of wind, A damsel lay deploring, All on a rock reclined.

When we risk no contradiction, It prompts the tongue to deal in fiction.

Fill it up. I take as large draughts of liquor as I did of love. I hate a flincher in either.

A woman's friendship ever ends in love.

No retreat. No retreat. They must conquer or die who've no retreat.

What then in love can woman do? If we grow fond they shun us. And when we fly them, they pursue: But leave us when they've won us.

Sure men were born to lie, and women to believe them!

Fair is the kingcup that in meadow blows, Fair is the daisy that beside her grows.

Those who in quarrels interpose, must often wipe a bloody nose.

Envy's a sharper spur than pay.

But money, wife, is the true Fuller's Earth for reputations, there is not a spot or a stain but what it can take out.

Beasts kill for hunger, men for pay.

Gamesters and highwaymen are generally very good to their whores, but they are very devils to their wives.

Give me, kind heaven, a private station, a mind serene for contemplation.

Here Shock, the pride of all his kind, is laid, Who fawned like man, but ne'er like man betrayed.

'T is woman that seduces all mankind; By her we first were taught the wheedling arts.

O Polly, you might have toyed and kissed, by keeping men off, you keep them on.

There is no dependence that can be sure but a dependence upon one's self.

Whoever heard a man of fortune in England talk of the necessaries of life? ... Whether we can afford it or no, we must have superfluities.

The luxury of doing good surpasses every other personal enjoyment.

Who friendship with a knave hath made, Is judged a partner in the trade.

To friendship every burden's light.

A rich rogue nowadays is fit company for any gentleman; and the world, my dear, hath not such a contempt for roguery as you imagine.

What frenzy dictates, jealousy believes

One wife is too much for most husbands to bear, But two at a time there's no mortal can bear.

Whence is thy learning? Hath thy toil O'er books consumed the midnight oil?

Gulliver was soon being read "from the cabinet council to the nursery".

By outward show let's not be cheated; An ass should like an ass be treated.

Shadow owes its birth to light.

Woman's mind Oft' shifts her passions, like th'inconstant wind; Sudden she rages, like the troubled main, Now sinks the storm, and all is calm again.

In beauty faults conspicuous grow; The smallest speck is seen on snow.

Of all the fools that pride can boast, A Coxcomb claims distinction most.

No author ever spar'd a brother.

She who has never loved has never lived.

In every age and clime we see Two of a trade can never agree.

Fools may our scorn, not envy, raise. For envy is a kind of praise.

I never, with important air, In conversation overbear ... My tongue within my lips I rein; For who talks much must talk in vain.

Tell me and I forget. Show me and I remember. Involve me and I understand.

The fly that sips treacle is lost in the sweets.

How, like a moth, the simple maid Still plays around the flame!

Who talks much, must talk in vain.

Music might tame and civilize wild beasts, but 'tis evident it never yet could tame and civilize musicians.

Love is so whimsical in both sexes that it is impossible to be lasting. But my heart is particular and contradicts my own observation.

And when a lady's in the case, You know, all other things give place.

To cheat a man isnothing; but the womanmust have fine parts indeed who cheats a woman!

Is there no hope? the sick man said, The silent doctor shook his head, And took his leave with signs of sorrow, Despairing of his fee to-morrow.

Who hath not heard the rich complain Of surfeits, and corporeal pain? He barr'd from every use of wealth, Envies the ploughman's strength and health.

Cowards are cruel, but the brave love mercy and delight to save.

Fair is the marigold, for pottage meet.

My Own Epitaph
Life's a jest, and all things show it.
I thought so once, and now I know it.

Youth's the season made for joys, Love is then our duty.

Shall ignorance of good and ill Dare to direct the eternal will? Seek virtue, and of that possest, To Providence resign the rest.

My lodging is on the cold ground, And hard, very hard, is my fare, But that which grieves me more Is the coldness of my dear.

From kings to cobblers 'tis the same; Bad servants wound their masters' fame.