W.S. Gilbert Quotes & Sayings

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

When a felon s not engaged in his employment, Or maturing his felonious little plans, His capacity for innocent enjoyment Is just as great as any honest mans. — W.S. Gilbert

When you are lying awake with a dismal headache, and repose is tabooed by anxiety, I conceive you may use any language you choose to indulge in without impropriety. — W.S. Gilbert

Is life a boon?
If so, it must befall
That Death, whene'er he call,
Must call too soon.
Though fourscore years he give,
Yet one would pray to live
Another moon!
What kind of plaint have I,
Who perish in July?
I might have had to die,
Perchance, in June!

Is life a thorn?
Then count it not a whit!
Man is well done with it;
Soon as he's born
He should all means essay
To put the plague away;
And I, war-worn,
Poor captured fugitive,
My life most gladly give -
I might have had to live,
Another morn! — W.S. Gilbert

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

Bind up their wounds - but look the other way. — W.S. Gilbert

When the enterprising burglar isn't burgling; When the cut-throat isn't occupied in crime; He loves to hear the little brook a-gurgling; And listen to the merry village chime. — 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

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

To sit in solemn silence on 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

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

In all the woes that curse our race there is a lady in the case. — W.S. Gilbert

A policeman's lot is not a happy one — W.S. Gilbert

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

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

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

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

So I fell in love with a rich attorney's
Elderly ugly daughter. — W.S. Gilbert

Then a sentimental passion of a vegetable fashion must excite your
languid spleen,
An attachment a la Plato for a bashful young potato, or a
not-too-French French bean! — W.S. Gilbert

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

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

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

Love, unrequited, robs me of my rest:
Love, hopeless love, my ardent soul encumbers:
Love, nightmare-like, lies heavy on my chest,
And weaves itself into my midnight slumbers! — W.S. Gilbert

And the next day the gondolier came with a train of other gondoliers, all decked in their holiday garb, and on his gondola sat Angela, happy, and blushing at her happiness. Then he and she entered the house in which I dwelt, and came into my room (and it was strange indeed, after so many years of inversion, to see her with her head above her feet!), and then she wished me happiness and a speedy restoration to good health (which could never be); and I in broken words and with tears in my eyes, gave her the little silver crucifix that had stood by my bed or my table for so many years. And Angela took it reverently, and crossed herself, and kissed it, and so departed with her delighted husband.
And as I heard the song of the gondoliers as they went their way
the song dying away in the distance as the shadows of the sundown closed around me
I felt that they were singing the requiem of the only love that had ever entered my heart. — W.S. Gilbert

I am an acquired taste. — 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

Gilbert's response to being told they (the words 'ruddy' and 'bloody') meant the same thing was: Not at all, for that would mean that if I said that I admired your ruddy countenance, which I do, I would be saying that I liked your bloody cheek, which I don't. — W.S. Gilbert

Deerstalking would be a very fine sport if only the deer had guns. — W.S. Gilbert

I am the very model of a modern Major-General, I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral, I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical, From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical. — W.S. Gilbert

Posterity will know as little of me as I know of posterity. — W.S. Gilbert

This particularly rapid, unintelligible patter
Isn't generally heard, and if it is it doesn't matter,
This particularly rapid, unintelligible patter
Isn't generally heard, and if it is it doesn't matter,
matter, matter, matter, matter, matter,
matter, matter, matter, matter, matter! — W.S. Gilbert

CHORUS
What, never?

CAPTAIN
No, never!

CHORUS
What, never?

CAPTAIN
Well, hardly ever! — W.S. Gilbert

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

Wherever valor true is found, true modesty will there abound. — W.S. Gilbert

Life is a joke that's just begun. — W.S. Gilbert

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

Father, I am welling over with limpid joy! No sicklying taint of sorrow overlies the lucid lake of liquid love, upon which, hand in hand, Aline and I are to float into eternity! — W.S. Gilbert

All bayonets are bad. — 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

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

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

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

Darwinian man, though well-behaved, at best is only a monkey shaved. — W.S. Gilbert

I accept refreshment at any hands, however lowly. — W.S. Gilbert

For duty, duty must be done; The rule applies to everyone. — W.S. Gilbert

I am the Captain of the Pinafore ; And a right good captain too! ... 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

Bless your heart, they don't mind
they're exceedingly
kind
They don't blame you
as long as you're funny! — W.S. Gilbert

If you give me your attention, I will tell you what I am:
I'm a genuine philanthropist
all other kinds are sham.
Each little fault of temper and each social defect
In my erring fellow creatures, I endeavor to correct. — W.S. Gilbert

Poverty is obsolete and hunger is abolished — W.S. Gilbert

A man is but an ass
Who fights in a cuirass — W.S. Gilbert

Sing 'Hey to you - good-day to you'
Sing 'Bah to you - ha! ha! to you'
Sing 'Booh to you - pooh, pooh to you'
And that's what you should say! — W.S. Gilbert

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

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

I am, in point of fact, a particularly haughty and exclusive person, of pre-Adamite ancestral descent. You will understand this when I tell you that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule. — W.S. Gilbert

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. — W.S. Gilbert

Posterity shall know of me even less than I shall know of posterity. — W.S. Gilbert

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

There was an old man of St. Bees,
Who was stung in the arm by a wasp;
When they asked, "Does it hurt?"
He replied, "No, it doesn't,
But I thought all the while 'twas a Hornet. — W.S. Gilbert

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! — W.S. Gilbert

When everyone is somebody, then no one's anybody. — W.S. Gilbert

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

It's true I've got no shirts to wear;
It's true my butcher's bill is due;
It's true my prospects all look blue
But don't let that unsettle you — W.S. Gilbert

ALEXIS
I have made some converts to the principle that men and women should be coupled in matrimony without distinction of rank. I have lectured on the subject at Mechanics' Institutes, and the mechanics were unanimous in favour of my views. I have preached in workhouses, beershops and Lunatic Asylums, and I have been received with enthusiasm. I have addressed navvies on the advantages that would accrue to them if they married wealthy ladies of rank, and not a navvy dissented!
ALINE
Noble fellows! And yet there are those who hold that the uneducated classes are not open to argument! And what do the countesses say?
ALEXIS
Why, at present, it can't be denied, the aristocracy hold aloof.
ALINE
Ah, the working man is the true Intelligence after all!
ALEXIS
He is a noble creature when he is quite sober. — W.S. Gilbert

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

Life's a pudding full of plums. — W.S. Gilbert

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! — W.S. Gilbert

Utopia's quite another land;
In her enterprising movements,
She is England
with improvements — W.S. Gilbert

Things are seldom what they seem. — 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

No good play is a success; fine writing and high morals are useless on the stage. I have been scribbling twaddle for thirty-five years to suit the public taste, and I should know. — 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

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

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

Let the punishment fit the crime. — W.S. Gilbert

Oh, dry the glistening tear that dues that marshal cheek
Thy loving childern here in them thy comfort seek
With sympathetic care their arms around the creep,
For oh they can not bear to see their father weep — W.S. Gilbert

Oh, wouldn't the world seem dull and flat with nothing whatever to grumble at? — W.S. Gilbert

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

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

As is gloriously sung in the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta "H.M.S. Pinafore," in the words of W. S. Gilbert: "Things are seldom as they seem, Skim milk masquerades as cream." — 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

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

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

Roll on, thou ball, roll on!
Through pathless realms of Space — W.S. Gilbert

Isn't your life extremely flat,With nothing to grumble at? — W.S. Gilbert

If you're anxious to shine in the high aesthetic line as a man of culture rare, you must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms, and plant them everywhere. — W.S. Gilbert

I often think it's comical
How Nature always does contrive
That every boy and every gal
That's born into the world alive
Is either a little Liberal
Or else a little Conservative! — W.S. Gilbert

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

If I can wheedle
A knife or a needle,
Why not a Silver Churn? — W.S. Gilbert

He led his regiment from behind. He found it less exciting. — W.S. Gilbert

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