W.S. Gilbert Quotes
He is only a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of the Conservative.
A citizen can hardly distinguish between a tax and a fine, except that the fine is generally much lighter.
None of the modern machines, none of the modern paraphernalia. . . have any power except over the people who choose to use them.
Circumstances break men's bones; it has never been shown that they break men's optimism.
Evil always wins through the strength of its splendid dupes; and there has in all ages been a disastrous alliance between abnormal innocence and abnormal sin.
By all men bond to Nothing, Being slaves without a lord, By one blind idiot world obeyed, Too blind to be abhorred.
Only men to whom the family is sacred will ever have a standard or a status by which to criticize the State. They alone can appeal to something more holy than the gods of the city.
Altruists, with thin, weak voices, denounce Christ as an egoist. Egoists (with even thinner and weaker voices) denounce Him as an altruist.
Mysticism keeps mankind sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity.
The Catholic Church is the only thing that saves man from the degrading slavery of being a child of his age.
Faith is always at a disadvantage; it is a perpetually defeated thing which survives all conquerors.
A great man knows he is not God, and the greater he is the better he knows it.
The Church is a house with a hundred gates: and no two men enter at exactly the same angle
The man of the true religious tradition understands two things: liberty and obedience. The first means knowing what you really want. The second means knowing what you really trust.
There cannot be a nation of millionaires, and there never has been a nation of Utopian comrades; but there have been any number of nations of tolerably contented peasants.
A good man's work is effected by doing what he does, a woman's by being what she is.
I think the oddest thing about the advanced people is that, while they are always talking about things as problems, they have hardly any notion of what a real problem is.
When it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity.
Time and again, the Faith has to all appearances gone to the dogs. But each time, it was the dog that died.
Truths turn into dogmas the instant that they are disputed. Thus every man who utters a doubt defines a religion.
The martyr endured tortures to affirm his belief in truth but he never asserted his disbelief in torture.
I am a journalist and have no earthly motives except curiosity and personal vanity.
The prophet and the quack are alike admired for a generation, and admired for the wrong reasons.
If the world grows to worldly, it can be rebuked by the Church; but if the Church grows to worldly, it cannot be adequately rebuked for worldlyness by the world.
The rolling stone rolls echoing from rock to rock; but the rolling stone is dead. The moss is silent because the moss is alive.
Every man speaks of public opinion, and means by public opinion, public opinion minus his opinion.
For the only courage worth calling courage must necessarily mean that the soul passes a breaking point and does not break.
My attitude toward progress has passed from antagonism to boredom. I have long ceased to argue with people who prefer Thursday to Wednesday because it is Thursday.
A great city is the place to escape the true drama of provincial life, and find solace in fantasy.
Architecture approaches nearer than any other art to being irrevocable because it is so difficult to get rid of.
The most important fact about the subject of education is that there is no such thing. Education is not a subject and it does not deal in subjects. It is instead the transfer of a way of life.