W.S. Gilbert > Quotes

“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.”
― W.S. Gilbert, The Mikado

“I'm really very sorry for you all, but it's an unjust world, and virtue is triumphant only in theatrical performances.”
― W.S. Gilbert, The Mikado

“Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.”
― W.S. Gilbert, The Mikado

“Oh, dry the glistening tear that dues that marshal cheek
Thy loving childern here in them thy comfort seek
With sympathetic care their arms around the creep,
For oh they can not bear to see their father weep”
― W.S. Gilbert, The Pirates of Penzance

“It's love that makes the world go round.”
― W.S. Gilbert

“When everyone is somebody, then no one’s anybody.”
― W.S. Gilbert, The Gondoliers

“I am an acquired taste.”
― W.S. Gilbert

“Let the punishment fit the crime.”
― William Schwenck Gilbert, The Mikado

“Gilbert's response to being told they (the words 'ruddy' and 'bloody') meant the same thing was: "Not at all, for that would mean that if I said that I admired your ruddy countenance, which I do, I would be saying that I liked your bloody cheek, which I don't.”
― W.S. Gilbert

“CHORUS
What, never?

CAPTAIN
No, never!

CHORUS
What, never?

CAPTAIN
Well, hardly ever!”
― W.S. Gilbert, H.M.S. Pinafore

“No one can have a higher opinion of him than I have, and I think he's a dirty little beast.”
― W.S. Gilbert

“The meaning doesn't matter if it's only idle chatter of a transcendental kind.”
― W.S. Gilbert, Patience

“Wafted by a favouring gale
As one sometimes is in trances,
To a height that few can scale,
Save by long and weary dances”
― W.S. Gilbert, The Mikado

“Crushed again!”
― W.S. Gilbert, Patience

“Sing 'Hey to you — good-day to you' —
Sing 'Bah to you — ha! ha! to you' —
Sing 'Booh to you — pooh, pooh to you' —
And that's what you should say!”
― W.S. Gilbert, Patience

“This particularly rapid, unintelligible patter
Isn't generally heard, and if it is it doesn't matter,
This particularly rapid, unintelligible patter
Isn't generally heard, and if it is it doesn't matter,
matter, matter, matter, matter, matter,
matter, matter, matter, matter, matter!”
― W.S. Gilbert, Ruddigore

“Is life a boon?
If so, it must befall
That Death, whene'er he call,
Must call too soon.
Though fourscore years he give,
Yet one would pray to live
Another moon!
What kind of plaint have I,
Who perish in July?
I might have had to die,
Perchance, in June!

Is life a thorn?
Then count it not a whit!
Man is well done with it;
Soon as he's born
He should all means essay
To put the plague away;
And I, war-worn,
Poor captured fugitive,
My life most gladly give -
I might have had to live,
Another morn!”
― W.S. Gilbert, The Yeomen of the Guard: Or The Merryman and his Maid

“There was an old man of St. Bees,
Who was stung in the arm by a wasp;
When they asked, "Does it hurt?"
He replied, "No, it doesn't,
But I thought all the while 'twas a Hornet.”
― W.S. Gilbert

“I mean to rule the earth,
As he the sky —
We really know our worth,
The sun and I”
― W.S. Gilbert

“And the next day the gondolier came with a train of other gondoliers, all decked in their holiday garb, and on his gondola sat Angela, happy, and blushing at her happiness. Then he and she entered the house in which I dwelt, and came into my room (and it was strange indeed, after so many years of inversion, to see her with her head above her feet!), and then she wished me happiness and a speedy restoration to good health (which could never be); and I in broken words and with tears in my eyes, gave her the little silver crucifix that had stood by my bed or my table for so many years. And Angela took it reverently, and crossed herself, and kissed it, and so departed with her delighted husband.

And as I heard the song of the gondoliers as they went their way--the song dying away in the distance as the shadows of the sundown closed around me--I felt that they were singing the requiem of the only love that had ever entered my heart.”
― William Schwenk Gilbert

“Father, I am welling over with limpid joy! No sicklying taint of sorrow overlies the lucid lake of liquid love, upon which, hand in hand, Aline and I are to float into eternity!”
― W.S. Gilbert, The Sorcerer

“SAMUEL: Besides, we can offer you but little temptation to
remain with us. We don't seem to make piracy pay. I'm
sure I don't know why, but we don't.”
― W.S. Gilbert, The Complete Plays

“Merely corroborative detail intended to give artistic
verisimilitude to a bald and——”
― W.S. Gilbert, The Complete Plays

“If you’re anxious for to shine in the high æsthetic line as a man of culture rare,
You must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms, and plant them ev’rywhere.
You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases of your complicated state of mind,
The meaning doesn’t matter if it’s only idle chatter of a transcendental kind.

And ev’ry one will say,
As you walk your mystic way,
“If this young man expresses himself in terms too deep for me,
Why, what a very singularly deep young man this deep young man must be!”
― W. S. Gilbert

“We yield at once with humbled mien,
Because, with all our faults, we love our Queen.”
― W.S. Gilbert, The Pirates of Penzance

“ALEXIS
I have made some converts to the principle that men and women should be coupled in matrimony without distinction of rank. I have lectured on the subject at Mechanics' Institutes, and the mechanics were unanimous in favour of my views. I have preached in workhouses, beershops and Lunatic Asylums, and I have been received with enthusiasm. I have addressed navvies on the advantages that would accrue to them if they married wealthy ladies of rank, and not a navvy dissented!

ALINE
Noble fellows! And yet there are those who hold that the uneducated classes are not open to argument! And what do the countesses say?

ALEXIS
Why, at present, it can't be denied, the aristocracy hold aloof.

ALINE
Ah, the working man is the true Intelligence after all!

ALEXIS
He is a noble creature when he is quite sober.”
― W.S. Gilbert, The Sorcerer

“Now then, we've had a capital lunch, and we're quite
ready. Have all the painful preparations been made?”
― W.S. Gilbert, The Complete Plays