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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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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'T is woman that seduces all mankind; By her we first were taught the wheedling arts.
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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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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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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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Youth's the season made for joys, Love is then our duty.
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If love be not his Guide, He never will come back!
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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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She who has never loved has never lived.
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Life is a jest; and all things show it. I thought so once; and now I know it.
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No retreat. No retreat. They must conquer or die who've no retreat.
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From wine what sudden friendship springs!
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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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Fools may our scorn, not envy, raise. For envy is a kind of praise.
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Where yet was ever found a motherWho'd give her booby for another?
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Adieu, she cried, and waved her lily hand.
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Shadow owes its birth to light.
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Sure men were born to lie, and women to believe them!
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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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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.