W. S. Gilbert Quotes

142 Sourced Quotes

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

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
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
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.

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

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

W. S. Gilbert
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.

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

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

W. S. Gilbert
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.

W. S. Gilbert
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!

W. S. Gilbert
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

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

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

W. S. Gilbert
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!

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

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

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

W. S. Gilbert
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

W. S. Gilbert
I shall carry to the Catacombs of Age,
Photographically lined
On the tablet of my mind

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

W. S. Gilbert
About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot of news,
With many cheerful facts about the square on the hypotenuse.

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

W. S. Gilbert
On a cloth untrue With a twisted cue
And elliptical billiard balls.

W. S. Gilbert
Oh! my name is John Wellington Wells,
I'm a dealer in magic and spells,
In blessings and curses
And ever-filled purses,
In prophecies, witches, and knells.

If you want a proud foe to "make tracks"—
If you'd melt a rich uncle in wax—
You've but to look in
On our resident Djinn,
Number seventy, Simmery Axe!

W. S. Gilbert
The world has joked incessantly for over fifty centuries. And every joke that's possible has long ago been made.

W. S. Gilbert