W.S. Gilbert quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by W.S. Gilbert

W.S. Gilbert Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from W.S. Gilbert on Wise Famous Quotes.

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!

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.

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

A policeman's lot is not a happy one

I am an acquired taste.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Life is a joke that's just begun.

Life's a pudding full of plums.

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

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

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

We yield at once with humbled mien,
Because, with all our faults, we love our Queen.

A man is but an ass
Who fights in a cuirass

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

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

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

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

All bayonets are bad.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wafted by a favouring gale
As one sometimes is in trances,
To a height that few can scale,
Save by long and weary dances

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

I see no objection to stoutness, in moderation.

I accept refreshment at any hands, however lowly.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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!

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

CHORUS
What, never?

CAPTAIN
No, never!

CHORUS
What, never?

CAPTAIN
Well, hardly ever!

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

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

Things are seldom what they seem.

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

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

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

Poverty is obsolete and hunger is abolished

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

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

Bind up their wounds - but look the other way.

Let the punishment fit the crime.

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

The meaning doesn't matter if it's only idle chatter of a transcendental kind.

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