W. S. Gilbert Quotes

142 Sourced Quotes

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

W. S. Gilbert
Things are seldom what they seem,
Skim milk masquerades as cream.

W. S. Gilbert
When the foeman bares his steel,
Tarantara, tarantara!
We uncomfortable feel,
Tarantara.

W. S. Gilbert
Archibald: To understand this, it is not necessary to think of anything at all.
Saphir: Let us think of nothing at all!

W. S. Gilbert
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!

W. S. Gilbert
No one can have a higher opinion of him than I have—and I think he is a dirty little beast.

W. S. Gilbert
You have a daughter, Captain Reese,
Ten female cousins and a niece,
A ma, if what I'm told is true,
Six sisters and an aunt or two.
Now, somehow, Sir, it seems to me,
More friendly-like we all should be
If you united of them to
Unmarried members of the crew.

W. S. Gilbert
The prospect of a lot
Of dull MPs in close proximity,
All thinking for themselves is what
No man can face with equanimity.

W. S. Gilbert
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!

W. S. Gilbert
You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases of your complicated state of mind, The meaning doesn't matter if it's only idle chatter of a transcendental kind. And everyone will say, As you walk your mystic way, "If this young man expresses himself in terms too deep for me, Why, what a very singularly deep young man this deep young man must be!"

W. S. Gilbert
Oh, I am a cook and a captain bold And the mate of the Nancy brig, And a bo'sun tight, and a midshipmite, And the crew of the captain's gig.

W. S. Gilbert
I know what love is. There was a happy time when I didn't, but bitter experience has taught me.

W. S. Gilbert
As someday it may happen that a victim must be found
I've got a little list, I've got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed—who never would be missed!

W. S. Gilbert
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!

W. S. Gilbert
[Koko is negotiating the terms by which he can behead Nanki-Poo in his place, and they involve letting the latter be married to his fiance until he is executed]
Koko: But my position during the next month will be most unpleasant, most unpleasant!
Nanki-Poo: Not nearly so unpleasant as mine at the end of it.

W. S. Gilbert
I should have preferred to ride through the streets of Venice; but owing, I presume, to an unusually wet season,
the streets are in such a condition that equestrian exercise is impractical.

W. S. Gilbert
To sit in solemn silence in 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!

W. S. Gilbert
And so do his sisters, and his cousins, and his aunts! His sisters and his cousins, Whom he reckons up by dozens, And his aunts!

W. S. Gilbert
I see no objection to stoutness, in moderation.

W. S. Gilbert
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.

W. S. Gilbert
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.

W. S. Gilbert
When they're offered to the world in merry guise,
Unpleasant truths are swallowed with a will—
For he who'd make his fellow-creatures wise
Should always gild the philosophic pill!

W. S. Gilbert
Hearts just as pure and fair
May beat in Belgrave Square
As in the lowly air
Of Seven Dials.

W. S. Gilbert
Then a sentimental passion of a vegetable fashion must excite your languid spleen,
An attachment à la Plato for a bashful young potato, or a not-too-French French bean!
Though the Philistines may jostle, you will rank as an apostle in the high aesthetic band,
If you walk down Piccadilly with a poppy or a lily in your medieval hand.

W. S. Gilbert
If you're anxious for to shine in the high aesthetic line as a man of culture rare.

W. S. Gilbert
You can't get high aesthetic tastes,
Like trousers, ready-made.

W. S. Gilbert
When I went to the Bar as a very young man (Said I to myself, said I).

W. S. Gilbert
I have a left shoulder-blade that is a miracle of loveliness. People come miles to see it. My right elbow has a fascination that few can resist.

W. S. Gilbert
I seized him by his little pig-tail,
And on his knees fell he,
As he squirmed and struggled,
And gurgled and guggled,
I drew my snickersnee!

W. S. Gilbert
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.

W. S. Gilbert