W. S. Gilbert
42 quotes
Biography
"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."
"Or you or I must yield up his life to Ahrimanes. I would rather it were you."
"What, never? / No, never! / What, never? / Well, hardly ever!"
"The last three ships we took proved to be manned entirely by orphans, and so we had to let them go. One would think that Great Britain’s mercantile navy was recruited solely from her orphan asylums – which we know is not the case."
"When your process of extermination begins, let our deaths be as swift and painless as you can conveniently make them."
"No, Frederic, it cannot be. I don’t think much of our profession, but, contrasted with respectability, it is comparatively honest."
"Against our wills, papa—against our wills!"
"Exactly – you said "often" ('frequently') only once."
"Yes, but you don't go!"
"Art stopped short at the cultivated court of the Empress Josephine."
"Yes, I am the Apostle of Simplicity. I am called Archibald the All-Right, for I am infallible."
"I know what love is. There was a happy time when I didn't, but bitter experience has taught me."
"I can tell a woman's age in half a minute — and I do!"
"Man is nature's sole mistake."
"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. Consequently, my family pride is something inconceivable. I can’t help it. I was born sneering."
"…in the first place, self decapitation is an extremely difficult, not to say dangerous, thing to attempt; and, in the second, it’s suicide, and suicide is a capital offence."
"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."
"...but it's an unjust world, and virtue is triumphant only in theatrical performances."
"I know a youth who loves a little maid— (Hey, but his face is a sight for to see!) Silent is he, for he's modest and afraid (Hey, but he's timid as a youth can be!)"
"My eyes are fully open to my awful situation, I shall go at once to Roderic and make him an oration, I shall tell him I've recovered my forgotten moral senses, and I don't care tuppence ha'penny for any consequences. Now I do not want to perish by the sword or by the dagger, but a martyr may indulge a little pardonable swagger And a word or two of compliment my vanity would flatter, but I've got to die to-morrow, so it really doesn't matter!"
"As innocent as a new-laid egg."
"When every blessed thing you have is made of silver or of gold you long for simple pewter."
"I always voted at my party's call And I never thought of thinking for myself at all."
"Did nothing in particular and did it very well."
"Oh I am a cook and a captain bold And the mate of the Nancy brig And a bo'sun tight and a midshipmate And the crew of the captain's gig."