W.S. Gilbert Quotes

How much larger your life would be if you were smaller in it.

Posting a letter and getting married [sic] are among the few things left that are entirely romantic; for to be entirely romantic, a thing must be irrevocable

Lord! what a strange world in which a man cannot remain unique even by taking the trouble to go mad!

America has a genius for the encouragement of fame.

Bigotry is an incapacity to conceive seriously the alternative to a proposition.

Anyone who is not an anarchist agrees with having a policeman at the corner of the street; but the danger at present is that of finding the policeman half-way down the chimney or even under the bed.

There are two kinds of rebellion. The first is one in which the slave demands something that the tyrant has got. The second is one in which he demands something that the tyrant has not got.

The sort of man who admires Italian art while despising Italian religion is a tourist and a cad.

If a man does not talk to himself, it is because he is not worth talking to.

Each generation is converted by the saint who contradicts it most.

He said he didn't very well understand how George was going to sleep any more than he did now, seeing that there were only twenty-four hours in each day.

Progress is the mother of problems.

All real democracy is an attempt like that of a jolly hostess to bring the shy people out.

The most valuable book we can read, about countries we have visited, is that which recalls to us something that we did notice, but did not notice that we noticed.

I should favour anything that would increase the present enormous authority of women and their creative action in their own homes. The average woman...is a despot; the average man is a serf.

A man running after a hat is not half so ridiculous as a man running after a woman.

The average woman is at the head of something with which she can do as she likes; the average man has to obey orders and do nothing else.

Art is the signature of man.

Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil.

The Devil's walking parody; On all four-footed things.

Nine times out of ten it is the coarse word that condemns an evil, and the refined word that excuses it.

Humility is the mother of giants.

There are no new ideas about female education.

The grinding power of the plain words of the Gospel story is like the power of mill-stones, and those who can read them simply enough will feel as if rocks had been rolled upon them.

Criticism is only words about words, and of what use are words about such words as these?

One can no more have a private religion than one can have a private sun or a private moon.

Any one of the strange laws we suffer is a compromise between a fad and a vested interest.

Adventure is the champagne of life.

Every time a man knocks on a brothel door, he is really knocking for God

The supreme adventure is being BORN

Literature and fiction are two entirely different things. Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.

Silver is sometimes more valuable than gold, that is, in large quantities.

How much happier you would be, how much more of you there would be, if the hammer of a higher God could smash your small cosmos.

There is only one thing that it requires real courage to say, and that is a truism.

A great man is not a man so strong that he feels less than other men; he is a man so strong that he feels more.

When men cease to believe in God, they will believe in anything

It is very foolish of a man to be frightened of a skeleton, for Nature has put an insurmountable obstacle against running away from it.

The worst moment for an atheist is when he feels a profound sense of gratitude and has no one to thank.

Every one on the earth should believe that he has something to give to the world which cannot otherwise be given.

There are many ways to fall down, but there's only one way to stand up straight.

The coziness between church and state is good for the state and bad for the church

The man who says, 'my country right or wrong' is like the man who says, 'my mother drunk or sober'

Sometimes he even embarrassed the company by phrases suggesting that there was some difference between a Liberal and a Conservative.

Every work of art has one indispensable mark ... the center of it is simple, however much the fulfillment may be complicated.

The first fact about the celebration of a birthday is that it is a way of affirming defiantly, and even flamboyantly, that it is a good thing to be alive.

Grey is a colour that always seems on the eve of changing to some other colour.

Boys like romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales-because they find them romantic.

The cross cannot be defeated for it is defeat.

The true savage is a slave, and is always talking about what he must do; the true civilised man is a free man, and is always talking about what he may do.

When once you have got hold of a vulgar joke, you may be certain that you have got hold of a subtle and spiritual idea.