John Gay Quotes (56 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

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Famous John Gay Quotes

“A man is always afraid of a woman that loves him too much”

John Gay

Source: The Beggar's Opera

“Whence thy learning? Hath thy toil
O'er books consumed the midnight oil?”

John Gay

Introduction, "The Shepherd and the Philosopher"; "Midnight oil" was a common phrase, used by Quarles, Shenstone, Cowper, Lloyd, and others.
Fables (1727)

“Lest men suspect your tale untrue,
Keep probability in view.”

John Gay

Fable, The Painter who pleased Nobody and Everybody
Fables (1727)

“That raven on yon left-hand oak
(Curse on his ill-betiding croak!)
Bodes me no good.”

John Gay

Fable, The Farmer's Wife and the Raven. Comparable to: "It wasn't for nothing that the raven was just now croaking on my left hand", Plautus, Aulularia, act iv. sc. 3
Fables (1727)

“Sure men were born to lie, and women to believe them!”

John Gay

Lucy, Act II, sc. xiii
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

“The charge is prepared; the lawyers are met;
The judges all ranged (a terrible show!)
I go, undismay'd.—For death is a debt,
A debt on demand.—So take what I owe.”

John Gay

Macheath, Act III, sc. xi, air 57
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

John Gay Quotes about love

“Youth's the season made for joys,
Love is then our duty.”

John Gay

Act II, sc. iv, air 22
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

“Fill it up. I take as large draughts of liquor as I did of love. I hate a flincher in either.”

John Gay

Mrs. Trapes, Act III, sc. vi
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

“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.”

John Gay

Lucy, Act II, sc. xv
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

“Macheath: And I would love you all the day,
Polly: Every night would kiss and play,
Macheath: If with me you’d fondly stray
Polly: Over the hills and far away.”

John Gay

Act I, sc. xxxiii, air 16
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

“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?”

John Gay

Matt, Act II, sc. i, air 19
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

“If love be not his Guide,
He never will come back!”

John Gay

Lucy, Act II, sc. xv, air 40
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

John Gay Quotes about men

“So comes a reckoning when the banquet's o'er,—
The dreadful reckoning, and men smile no more.”

John Gay

The What d' ye call it (1715). Comparable to: "The time of paying a shot in a tavern among good fellows, or Pantagruelists, is still called in France a 'quart d'heure de Rabelais,'—that is, Rabelais's quarter of an hour, when a man is uneasy or melancholy", Life of Rabelais (Bohn's edition), p. 13

“O Polly, you might have toyed and kissed,
By keeping men off, you keep them on.”

John Gay

Act I, sc. viii, air 9
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

“A Wolf eats sheep but now and then;
Ten thousands are devour'd by men.
An open foe may prove a curse,
but a pretend friend is worse.”

John Gay

Fable XVII, "The Shepherd's Dog and the Wolf"
Fables (1727)

John Gay: Trending quotes

“Were I laid on Greenland’s Coast,
And in my Arms embrac’d my Lass;
Warm amidst eternal Frost,
Too soon the Half Year’s Night would pass.”

John Gay

Act I, sc. xxxiii, air 16
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

Night

“How happy could I be with either,
Were t' other dear charmer away!”

John Gay

Act II, scene ii
The Beggar's Opera (1728)
Variant: How happy could I be with either,
Were t' other dear charmer away!

Happiness

“The fly that sips treacle is lost in the sweets.”

John Gay

Act II, scene ii
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

Flying

John Gay Quotes

“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.”

John Gay

"Beggar", Introduction
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

“Adieu, she cried, and waved her lily hand.”

John Gay

Sweet William's Farewell to Black-eyed Susan, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“While there is life there 's hope, he cried.”

John Gay

Fable, The Sick Man and the Angel
Comparable to: "For the living there is hope, but for the dead there is none", Theocritus (3rd century BC), Idyl iv, 42; "Ægroto, dum anima est, spes est" ("While the sick man has life, there is hope", Cicero (1st century BC), Epistolarum ad Atticum, ix, 10
Fables (1727)

Life , Hope

“And when a lady's in the case,
You know all other things give place.”

John Gay

Fable L, "The Hare and many Friends"
Fables (1727)

“Do you think your Mother and I should have liv'd comfortably so long together, if ever we had been married?”

John Gay

Peachum, Act I, sc. viii
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

Thinking

“Over the hills and far away.”

John Gay

Act I, scene i; comparable to: "O'er the hills and far away", D'Urfey, Pills to purge Melancholy (1628–1723).
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

“The charge is prepar'd, the lawyers are met,
The judges all ranged,—a terrible show!”

John Gay

Act III, scene ii
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

“Is there no hope? the sick man said;
The silent doctor shook his head.”

John Gay

Fable, The Sick Man and the Angel
Fables (1727)

Hope

“From wine what sudden friendship springs!”

John Gay

VI, "The Squire and His Cur"
Fables (1727), Fables, Part the Second (1738)

Friendship , Spring , Wine

“No author ever spar'd a brother.”

John Gay

Fable X, "The Elephant and the Bookseller"
Fables (1727)

“In every age and clime we see
Two of a trade can never agree.”

John Gay

Fable XXI, "The Rat-catcher and Cats". Comparable to: "Potter is jealous of potter, and craftsman of craftsman; and poor man has a grudge against poor man, and poet against poet", Hesiod, Works and Days, 24; "Le potier au potier porte envie" (translated: "The potter envies the potter"), Bohn, Handbook of Proverbs; also in Arthur Murphy, The Apprentice, act iii
Fables (1727)

Age

“No retreat. No retreat. They must conquer or die who’ve no retreat.”

John Gay

"We’ve Cheated the Parson" (song), Polly: an Opera (1729), Air 46, Act II, sc. x

“Love, then, hath every bliss in store;
'Tis friendship, and 'tis something more.
Each other every wish they give;
Not to know love is not to live.”

John Gay

Fable LXIII, "Plutus, Cupid, and Time"
Fables (1727)

Love , Friendship

“As we live by the Muses, it is but a Gratitude in us to encourage Poetical Merit wherever we find it. The Muses, contrary to all other Ladies, pay no Distinction to Dress, and never partially mistake the Pertness of Embroidery for Wit, nor the Modesty of Want for Dulness. Be the Author who he will, we push his Play as far as it will go. So (though you are in Want) I wish you success heartily.”

John Gay

"Player", Introduction
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

Success , Gratitude

“Give me, kind Heaven, a private station,
A mind serene for contemplation:
Title and profit I resign;
The post of honour shall be mine.”

John Gay

The Vulture, the Sparrow, and other Birds. Comparable to: "When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, The post of honour is a private station", Joseph Addison, Cato, Act iv, scene 4
Fables (1727), Fables, Part the Second (1738)

“You base man you,—how can you look me in the face after what hath passed between us?—See here, perfidious wretch, how I am forc'd to bear about the load of infamy you have laid upon me— -O Macheath! thou hast robb'd me of my quiet—to see thee tortur'd would give me pleasure.”

John Gay

Lucy, Act II, sc. ix
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

Pleasure

“If the heart of a man is depressed with cares,
The mist is dispell'd when a woman appears;
Like the notes of a fiddle, she sweetly, sweetly
Raises the spirits, and charms our ears.”

John Gay

Act II, sc. iii, air 21
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

Appearance , Heart

“Where yet was ever found a mother
Who'd give her booby for another?”

John Gay

Fable III, "The Mother, the Nurse, and the Fairy"
Fables (1727)

“Life is a jest; and all things show it. I thought so once; and now I know it.”

John Gay

My Own Epitaph, inscribed on Gay’s monument in Westminster Abbey; also quoted as "I thought so once; but now I know it".
Variant: Life is a jest, and all things show it,
I thought so once, and now I know it.

Life

“In beauty faults conspicuous grow;
The smallest speck is seen on snow.”

John Gay

Fable XI, "The Peacock, Turkey, and Goose"
Fables (1727)

Beauty

“When we risk no contradiction,
It prompts the tongue to deal in fiction.”

John Gay

Fable X, "The Elephant and the Bookseller"
Fables (1727)

“I must have women—there is nothing unbends the mind like them.”

John Gay

Macheath, Act II, sc. iii
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

Women

“All in the Downs the fleet was moor'd.”

John Gay

Sweet William's Farewell to Black-eyed Susan, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Twas when the seas were roaring
With hollow blasts of wind,
A damsel lay deploring,
All on a rock reclined.”

John Gay

The What D'ye Call It (1715), Act II, sc. viii

Sea

“Remote from cities liv'd a swain,
Unvex'd with all the cares of gain;
His head was silver'd o'er with age,
And long experience made him sage.”

John Gay

Introduction, "The Shepherd and the Philosopher"
Fables (1727)

Age

“Brother, brother! we are both in the wrong.”

John Gay

Act II, scene ii
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

“T is woman that seduces all mankind;
By her we first were taught the wheedling arts.”

John Gay

Act I, scene i
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

Art

“I don't enquire after your Affairs-- --so whatever happens, I wash my hands on't---- It hath always been my Maxim, that one Friend should assist another-- --But if you please----I'll take one of the Scarfs home with me. 'Tis always good to have something in Hand.”

John Gay

Trapes, Act III, sc. vi
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

Home

“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.”

John Gay

Mrs. Peachum, Act I, sc. viii
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

Pleasure , Cheating , Daughters

“You know, my Dear, I never meddle in matters of Death; I always leave those Affairs to you. Women indeed are bitter bad Judges in these cases, for they are so partial to the Brave that they think every Man handsome who is going to the Camp or the Gallows.”

John Gay

Mrs. Peachum, Act I, sc. iv
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

Death , Women , Thinking

“I hate the man who builds his name
On ruins of another's fame.
Thus prudes, by characters o'erthrown,
Imagine that they raise their own.
Thus Scribblers, covetous of praise,
Think slander can transplant the bays.”

John Gay

Fable XLV, "The Poet and the Rose"
Fables (1727)

Hate , Imagination , Thinking

“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.”

John Gay

Act II, sc. viii, air 26
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

Flying

“My lodging is on the cold ground,
And hard, very hard, is my fare,
But that which grieves me more
Is the coldness of my dear.”

John Gay

My Lodging Is on the Cold Ground (1720), st. 1

“Those who in quarrels intepose
Must often wipe a bloody nose.”

John Gay

Fable XXXIV, "The Mastiffs"
Fables (1727)

“Envy is a kind of praise.”

John Gay

Fable XLIV http://books.google.com/books?id=8Q9IAAAAMAAJ&q=%22envy+is+a+kind+of+praise%22&pg=PA170#v=onepage, "The Hound and the Huntsman"
Fables (1727)

Envy

“Can you support the expense of a husband, hussy, in gaming, drinking and whoring? Have you money enough to carry on the daily quarrels of man and wife about who shall squander most? There are not many husbands and wives, who can bear the charges of plaguing one another in a handsome way.”

John Gay

Mrs. Peachum, Act I, sc. viii
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

Money , Drink , Whore , Support

“By outward show let's not be cheated;
An ass should like an ass be treated.”

John Gay

XI, "The Packhorse and Carrier"
Fables (1727), Fables, Part the Second (1738)

Cheating

“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.”

John Gay

Peachum, Act I, air 1
The Beggar's Opera (1728)