W. S. Gilbert Quotes (67 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

Mr Wells' song, Act I.
"Simmery Axe" is the traditional pronunciation of "St. Mary Axe", a road in the City of London.
In Gilbert's day, the last building was number 68, though number 70 was built later.
The Sorcerer (1877)

“If you want a receipt for that popular mystery,
Known to the world as a Heavy Dragoon -
Take all the remarkable people in history,
Rattle them off to a popular tune!”

W. S. Gilbert

Patience (1881)

“As someday it may happen that a victim must be found
I've got a little list, I've got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed—who never would be missed!”

W. S. Gilbert

Song, "As someday it may happen".
The Mikado (1885)

“She may very well pass for forty three
In the dusk with the light behind her.”

W. S. Gilbert

Trial by Jury (1875)

“You have a daughter, Captain Reese,
Ten female cousins and a niece,
A ma, if what I'm told is true,
Six sisters and an aunt or two.
Now, somehow, Sir, it seems to me,
More friendly-like we all should be
If you united of them to
Unmarried members of the crew.”

W. S. Gilbert

Captain Reese.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“On a tree by a river a little tomtit
Sang "Willow, titwillow, titwillow"
And I said to him, "Dicky-bird, why do you sit
Singing ‘Willow, titwillow, titwillow?'.
"Is it weakness of intellect, birdie?" I cried,
"Or a rather tough worm in your little inside?"
With a shake of his poor little head he replied,
"Oh, Willow, titwillow, titwillow!"”

W. S. Gilbert

The Suicide's Grave (from The Mikado).
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“But I submit, my lord, with all submission,
To marry two at once is Burglaree!”

W. S. Gilbert

Trial by Jury (1875)

“Oh, I am a cook and a captain bold
And the mate of the Nancy brig,
And a bo'sun tight and a midshipmite
And the crew of the captain's gig.”

W. S. Gilbert

The Yarn of the "Nancy Bell". Compare: There were three sailors of Bristol city
Who took a boat and went to sea.
But first with beef and captain's biscuits
And pickled pork they loaded she.
There was gorging Jack and guzzling Jimmy,
And the youngest he was little Billee.
Now when they got as far as the Equator
They'd nothing left but one split pea.
W. M. Thackeray: Little Billee.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“…but it's an unjust world, and virtue is triumphant only in theatrical performances.”

W. S. Gilbert

The Mikado (1885)

“Things are seldom what they seem;
Skim milk masquerades as cream.”

W. S. Gilbert

H.M.S. Pinafore (1878)

“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.”

W. S. Gilbert

The Lord Chancellor's Song (from Iolanthe).
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Variant: 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.

“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. Consequently, my family pride is something inconceivable. I can’t help it. I was born sneering.”

W. S. Gilbert

The Mikado (1885)

“I should have preferred to ride through the streets of Venice; but owing, I presume, to an unusually wet season,
the streets are in such a condition that equestrian exercise is impractical.”

W. S. Gilbert

The Gondoliers (1889)

“The end is easily foretold,
When every blessed thing you hold
Is made of silver, or of gold,
You long for simple pewter.
When you have nothing else to wear
But cloth of gold and satins rare,
For cloth of gold you cease to care—
Up goes the price of shoddy.
In short, whoever you may be,
To this conclusion you'll agree,
When everyone is somebodee,
Then no one's anybody!”

W. S. Gilbert

The Gondoliers (1889)

“Of that there is no manner of doubt—
No probable, possible shadow of doubt—
No possible doubt whatever.”

W. S. Gilbert

The Gondoliers (1889)

“Oh, philosophers may sing
Of the troubles of a King,
But of pleasures there are many and of worries there are none;
And the culminating pleasure
That we treasure beyond measure
Is the gratifying feeling that our duty has been done.”

W. S. Gilbert

The Gondoliers (1889)

“…in the first place, self decapitation is an extremely difficult, not to say dangerous, thing to attempt; and, in the second, it’s suicide, and suicide is a capital offence.”

W. S. Gilbert

The Mikado (1885)

“From such a face and form as mine, the noblest sentiments sound like the black utterances of a depraved imagination!
It's human nature! I'm resigned.”

W. S. Gilbert

H.M.S. Pinafore (1878)

“[Koko is negotiating the terms by which he can behead Nanki-Poo in his place, and they involve letting the latter be married to his fiance until he is executed]
Koko: But my position during the next month will be most unpleasant, most unpleasant!
Nanki-Poo: Not nearly so unpleasant as mine at the end of it.”

W. S. Gilbert

The Mikado (1885)

“When your process of extermination begins, let our deaths be as swift and painless as you can conveniently make them.”

W. S. Gilbert

The Pirates of Penzance (1879)

“By doing so, we shall, in course of time,
Regenerate completely our entire land—
Great Britain is that monarchy sublime,
To which some add (but others do not) Ireland.”

W. S. Gilbert

Final chorus, concluding lines.
Utopia Limited (1893)

“One of you may be Baptisto's son, for anything I know to the contrary; but the other is no less a personage than the only son
of the late King of Barataria. … And I trust — I trust it was that one who slapped me on the shoulder and called me his man!”

W. S. Gilbert

The Gondoliers (1889)

“Bad language or abuse
I never, never use,
Whatever the emergency;
Though "Bother it" I may
Occasionally say,
I never use a big, big D-”

W. S. Gilbert

The first Lord's Song (from HMS Pinafore).
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Art stopped short at the cultivated court of the Empress Josephine.”

W. S. Gilbert

Patience (1881)

W. S. Gilbert

"Unappreciated Shakespeare", Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, Christmas Number, 9 December 1882.

“My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time—
To let the punishment fit the crime,
The punishment fit the crime.”

W. S. Gilbert

The Mikado (1885)

“I can tell a woman's age in half a minute — and I do!”

W. S. Gilbert

Princess Ida (1884)

“Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.”

W. S. Gilbert

The Mikado (1885)

“Archibald: To understand this, it is not necessary to think of anything at all.
Saphir: Let us think of nothing at all!”

W. S. Gilbert

Patience (1881)

“I've jibe and joke,
And quip and crank,
For lowly folk
And men of rank.”

W. S. Gilbert

The Yeomen of the Guard (1888)

“I have a left shoulder-blade that is a miracle of loveliness. People come miles to see it. My right elbow has a fascination that few can resist.”

W. S. Gilbert

The Mikado (1885)

“There's a little group of isles beyond the wave,
So tiny you might almost wonder where it is—
That nation is the bravest of the brave,
And cowards are the rarest of all rarities.
The proudest nations kneel at her command,
She terrifies all foreign-born rap-scallions;
And holds the peace of Europe in her hand
With half a score invincible battalions.”

W. S. Gilbert

Final chorus.
Utopia Limited (1893)

“In enterprise of martial kind,
When there was any fighting,
He led his regiment from behind—
He found it less exciting.”

W. S. Gilbert

The Gondoliers (1889)

“Ah, take one consideration with another
A policeman's lot is not a happy one!”

W. S. Gilbert

The Policeman's Lot (from The Pirates of Penzance).
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Then a sentimental passion of a vegetable fashion must excite your languid spleen,
An attachment à la Plato for a bashful young potato, or a not-too-French French bean!
Though the Philistines may jostle, you will rank as an apostle in the high aesthetic band,
If you walk down Piccadilly with a poppy or a lily in your medieval hand.”

W. S. Gilbert

Act I
Patience (1881)

“As innocent as a new-laid egg.”

W. S. Gilbert Engaged

Engaged.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“He is an Englishman!
For he himself has said it,
And it's greatly to his credit,
That he is an Englishman!.

For he might have been a Rooshian
A French or Turk or Proosian,
Or perhaps Itali-an.
But in spite of all temptations
To belong to other nations,
He remains an Englishman.”

W. S. Gilbert

The Englishman (from HMS Pinafore).
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“What, never? / No, never! / What, never? / Well, hardly ever!”

W. S. Gilbert

H.M.S. Pinafore (1878)

“Roll on, thou ball, roll on
Through pathless realms of space,
Roll on!”

W. S. Gilbert

To the Terrestrial Globe.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Man is nature's sole mistake.”

W. S. Gilbert

Princess Ida (1884)

“Against our wills, papa—against our wills!”

W. S. Gilbert

The Pirates of Penzance (1879)

“Yes, but you don't go!”

W. S. Gilbert

The Pirates of Penzance (1879)

W. S. Gilbert

With a shake of his poor little head he replied,
"Oh, Willow, titwillow, titwillow!"
The Suicide's Grave (from The Mikado).
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“In spite of all temptations
To belong to other nations,
He remains an Englishman!”

W. S. Gilbert

H.M.S. Pinafore (1878)
Source: 1878, HMS Pinafore, act 2, also quoted in Dictionary of Quotations, p. 354 (2005)

“When I was a lad I served a term
As office boy to an attorney's firm.
I cleaned the wndows and I swept the floor,
And I polished up the handle of the big front door.
I polished up that handle so carefullee
That now I am the Ruler of the Queen's Navee!”

W. S. Gilbert

H.M.S. Pinafore (1878)
Source: 1878, HMS Pinafore, act 2, also quoted in Dictionary of Quotations, p. 353-354 (2005)

“No money, no grovel!”

W. S. Gilbert

Actually an ad-lib introduced by Rutland Barrington when playing the rôle of Pooh-Bah, to the annoyance of Gilbert.
The Mikado (1885)