W.S. Gilbert Quotes

There's a fascination frantic in a ruin that's romantic.

For duty, duty must be done; The rule applies to everyone.

Posterity will know as little of me as I know of posterity.

Let the punishment fit the crime.

If your master is surly, from getting up early (And tempers are short in the morning), An inopportune joke is enough to provoke Him to give you, at once, a month's warning.

I am a courtier grave and serious Who is about to kiss your hand: Try to combine a pose imperious With a demeanour nobly bland.

I am a child of Nature, and take after my mother.

Posterity shall know of me even less than I shall know of posterity.

Bow, bow, ye lower middle classes! Bow, bow, ye tradesmen, bow, ye masses!

I see no objection to stoutness, in moderation.

All bayonets are bad.

Oh, I am a cook and a captain bold, And the mate of the Nancybrig, And a bos'sun tight, and a midshipmite, And the crew of the captain's gig!

The happiest hour a sailor sees Is when he's down At an inland town, With his Nancy on his knees, yo ho! And his arm around her waist!

I shall carry to the Catacombs of Age, Photographically lined On the tablet of my mind

Bind up their wounds - but look the other way.

On my face extended flat I was walloped with a cat For listening at the key-hole of the door.

Society has quite forsaken all her wicked courses, Which empties our police courts, and abolishes divorces.

Science doesn't in the slightest depend on trust. It depends completely on the belief that you can demonstrate something for yourself.

The best project is one that asks a novel question.

Today we try to identify a gene and then study its properties.

Error is far more common than fraud which probably comprises 1 percent or a tenth of a percent of the literature.

I have the same sense of the power and virtue of knowledge that some people get from a religious background.

Everyone wants a hand in the outcome, a piece of the knowledge.

The magnetic force is animate, or imitates a soul; in many respects it surpasses the human soul while it is united to an organic body.

I am never, never, sick at sea. What never? No never! What never? Hardly ever.

The magnet's name the observing Grecians drew. From the magnetic region where it grew.

He loves to hide, but only if you take the time to find him. And while I suspect that's true for most people, only a retard or a kid would admit it.

A man who says that no patriot should attack the war until it is over... is saying no good son should warn his mother of a cliff until she has fallen.

Love means to love that which is unlovable or it is no virtue at all.

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.

The family is the test of freedom because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself.

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

One sees great things from the valley only small things from the peak.

The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land.

The true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden heaven is a playground.

Brave men are all vertebrates they have their softness on the surface and their toughness in the middle.

...while social analysis must always be part of curriculum development and teaching, education policy and practice needs to be protected against the dangers of fads, obsessions and moral panics.

To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balancedlife.

Someday you're gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You'll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing...

The only thing more unthinkable than leaving was staying the only thing more impossible than stayin the only thing more impossible than staying was leaving.g was leaving.

Infatuation is not quite the same thing as love it's more like love's shady second cousin who's always borrowing money and can't hold down a job.

The Bhagavad Gita--that ancient Indian Yogic text--says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection.

It all goes away. Eventually, everything goes away.

You are, after all, what you think. Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.

If I am truly to become an autonomous woman, then I must take over that role of being my own guardian...I not only have to become my own husband, but I need to be my own father, too.

Looking for Truth is not some kind of spazzy free-for-all, not even during this, the great age of the spazzy free-for-all.

Look for God, suggests my Guru. Look for God like a man with his head on fire looks for water.

I couldn't care less about evidence and proof and assurances. I just want God. I want God inside me. I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water.

In fact, it was all I could do to stop myself from saying, 'I've always been a big fan of your work …

I am an acquired taste.