W. S. Gilbert Quotes

142 Sourced Quotes

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
I see no objection to stoutness, in moderation.

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

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
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
Now landsmen all, whoever you may be,
If you want to rise to the top of the tree,
If your soul isn't fettered to an office stool,
Be careful to be guided by this golden rule—
Stick close to your desks and never go to sea,
And you all may be Rulers of the Queen's Navee.

W. S. Gilbert
While this magnetic,
Peripatetic
Lover he lived to learn,
By no endeavor,
Can magnet ever
Attract a silver churn!

W. S. Gilbert
Then they began to sing
That extremely lovely thing,
'Scherzando! ma non troppo ppp.'

W. S. Gilbert
Art stopped short at the cultivated court of the Empress Josephine.

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

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
Francesca di Rimini, miminy, piminy,
Je-ne-sais-quoi young man!

W. S. Gilbert
I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule. Consequently, my family pride is something in-conceivable. I can't help it. I was born sneering.

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

W. S. Gilbert
Or you or I must yield up his life to Ahrimanes. I would rather it were you.

W. S. Gilbert