W. S. Gilbert Quotes
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If I can wheedle
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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.
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Bow, bow, ye lower middle classes!
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The idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone, All centuries but this, and every country but his own.
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When everyone is somebody, then no one's anybody.
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I shall carry to the Catacombs of Age,
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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.
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The privilege and pleasure That we treasure beyond measure Is to run on little errands for the Ministers of State.
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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.
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In all the woes that curse our race there is a lady in the case.
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Though I'm anything but clever, I could talk like that forever.
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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.
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I always voted at my party's call, and I never thought of thinking for myself at all.
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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.
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Isn't your life extremely flat,With nothing to grumble at?
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No one can have a higher opinion of him than I have; and I think he's a dirty little beast.
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I know everybody's income and what everybody earns,
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I am a child of Nature, and take after my mother.
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Then a sentimental passion of a vegetable fashion must excite your
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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.
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Let the punishment fit the crime.
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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.
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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.
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What though I cannot meet my bills?