John Gay Quotes
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O Polly, you might have toyed and kissed, by keeping men off, you keep them on.
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How the mother is to be pitied who hath handsome daughters! Locks, bolts, bars, and lectures of morality are nothing to them: they break through them all. They have as much pleasure in cheating a father and mother, as in cheating at cards.
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Fill ev'ry glass, for wine inspires us, And fires us With courage, love and joy. Women and wine should life employ. Is there ought else on earth desirous?
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How happy I am, if you say this from your heart! For I love thee so, that I could sooner bear to see thee hang'd than in the Arms of another.
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A rich rogue nowadays is fit company for any gentleman; and the world, my dear, hath not such a contempt for roguery as you imagine.
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By outward show let's not be cheated;An ass should like an ass be treated.
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Where yet was ever found a motherWho'd give her booby for another?
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'T is woman that seduces all mankind; By her we first were taught the wheedling arts.
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Fools may our scorn, not envy, raise. For envy is a kind of praise.
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Adieu, she cried, and waved her lily hand.
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Fill it up. I take as large draughts of liquor as I did of love. I hate a flincher in either.
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Give me, kind Heaven, a private station,A mind serene for contemplation:Title and profit I resign;The post of honour shall be mine.
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If Poverty be a Title to Poetry, I am sure nobody can dispute mine. I own myself of the Company of Beggars; and I make one at their Weekly Festivals at St. Giles's. I have a small Yearly Salary for my Catches, and am welcome to a Dinner there whenever I please, which is more than most Poets can say.
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Lions, wolves, and vultures don't live together in herds, droves or flocks. Of all animals of prey, man is the only sociable one. Every one of us preys upon his neighbor, and yet we herd together.
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Sure men were born to lie, and women to believe them!
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She who has never loved has never lived.
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Through all the Employments of Life Each Neighbour abuses his Brother;Whore and Rogue they call Husband and Wife:All Professions be-rogue one another:The Priest calls the Lawyer a Cheat,The Lawyer be-knaves the Divine:And the Statesman, because he's so great, Thinks his Trade as honest as mine.
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From wine what sudden friendship springs!
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Those who in quarrels interpose, must often wipe a bloody nose.
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Man may escape from rope and gun; Nay, some have outlived the doctor's pill: Who takes a woman must be undone, That basilisk is sure to kill. The fly that sips treacle is lost in the sweets, So he that tastes woman, woman, woman, He that tastes woman, ruin meets.
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Shadow owes its birth to light.
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What then in love can woman do? If we grow fond they shun us. And when we fly them, they pursue: But leave us when they've won us.
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If love be not his Guide, He never will come back!
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So comes a reckoning when the banquet's o'er,- The dreadful reckoning, and men smile no more.