William S. Gilbert citations

Page 2

“I know a youth who loves a little maid—
(Hey, but his face is a sight for to see!)
Silent is he, for he's modest and afraid
(Hey, but he's timid as a youth can be!)”

“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.”

“I know what love is. There was a happy time when I didn't, but bitter experience has taught me.”

“[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.”

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

“The House of Peers, thoughout the war
Did nothing in particular
And did it very well.”

“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.”

“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!”

“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-”

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

“A popular speaker, however unpopular and insignificant, has only to wind up his speech with half-a-dozen lines of Shakespeare (and to make it clearly understood that they are Shakespeare's) and he will sit down amid thunders of applause.”

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

“Life's a pudding full of plums;
Care's a canker that benumbs,
Wherefore waste our elocution
On impossible solution?
Life's a pleasant institution,
Let us take it as it comes!”

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

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

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

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

“When maiden loves, she sits and sighs,
She wanders to and fro -
Unbidden tear-drops fill her eyes,
And to all questions she replies
With a sad "heigh ho!"”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

“As innocent as a new-laid egg.”

“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.”

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

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

“To sit in solemn silence in 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!”

“Man is nature's sole mistake.”