W. S. Gilbert Quotes

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

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

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."

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.

Man is nature's sole mistake.

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

You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases of complicated state of mind. The meaning doesn't matter if it's only idle chatter of a transcendental kind.

Isn't your life extremely flat,With nothing to grumble at?

In the discovery of secret things and in the investigation of hidden causes, stronger reasons are obtained from sure experiments and demonstrated arguments than from probable conjectures and the opinions of philosophical speculators of the common sort.

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!

Oh, wouldn't the world seem dull and flat with nothing whatever to grumble at?

All bayonets are bad.

Wherever valor true is found, true modesty will there abound.

Things are seldom what they seem.

Darwinian man, though well-behaved, at best is only a monkey shaved.

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.

When everyone is somebody, then no one's anybody.

Bind up their wounds - but look the other way.

poverty is obsolete and hunger is abolished

It's love that makes the world go round.

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.

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.

Life is a joke that's just begun.

In all the woes that curse our race there is a lady in the case.

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.

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.

My family pride is something inconceivable. I can't help it. I was born sneering.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Deerstalking would be a very fine sport if only the deer had guns.

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.

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.

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

I always voted at my party's call, and I never thought of thinking for myself at all.

Let the punishment fit the crime.

He led his regiment from behind. He found it less exciting.

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

Posterity will know as little of me as I know of posterity.

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

Posterity shall know of me even less than I shall know of posterity.

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

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

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

For duty, duty must be done; The rule applies to everyone.