W.S. Gilbert Quotes

When the enterprising burglar isn't burgling; When the cut-throat isn't occupied in crime; He loves to hear the little brook a-gurgling; And listen to the merry village chime.

The only boring people I know are bored people.

Keep showing up for your side of the job and give genius a chance to do its part.

We have hands; we can stand on them if we want to. That's our privilege. That's the joy of a mortal body. And that's why God needs us. Because God loves to feel things through our hands.

It's easy enough to pray when you're in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainment.

Bless your heart, they don't mind--they're exceedingly kind-- They don't blame you--as long as you're funny!

And that singular anomaly, the lady novelist-- I don't think she'd be missed--I'm sure she'd not be missed!

Psychoanalysis is a science conducted by lunatics for lunatics. They are generally concerned with proving that people are irresponsible; and they certainly succeed in proving that some people are

One of the chief uses of religion is that it makes us remember our coming from darkness, the simple fact that we are created.

You have now reached infatuation’s final destination—the complete and merciless devaluation of self.

I accept refreshment at any hands, however lowly.

the only thing you need to do for now is get some rest and take good care of yourself until you do know the answer

The full potentialities of human fury cannot be reached until a friend of both parties tactfully intervenes.

You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases of complicated state of mind. The meaning doesn't matter if it's only idle chatter of a transcendental kind.

I pretty much only write by default, because I want to make certain projects so instead of trying to wait and find them, I create them, but I'm not really a writer.

But since he stood for England And knew what England means, Unless you give him bacon You must not give him beans.

Shouldn't atheist have an equal obligation to explain pleasure in a world of randomness. Where does pleasure come from?

Devotion is diligence without assurance. If faith were rational, it wouldn't be by definition faith. Faith is walking face-first and full speed into the dark.

The happiest life is that which constantly exercises and educates what is best in us.

The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable one. The trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite.

Whatever else we may say of our own age, for good or evil, nobody is likely to call it an Age of Reason.

In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted.

Fashion is nothing more than the temporary custom of rich and idle people who make it their principal business to study the external elegance of life.

A man cannot have the energy to produce good art without having the energy to wish to pass beyond it.

Romance is the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure.

O that the gods would bring to a miserable end such fictitious, crazy, deformed labours, with which the minds of the studious are blinded!

People have prejudices against a nation in which they have no acquaintances.

Woe unto him that is never alone, and cannot bear to be alone.

Change is all about motion, motion is all about uncertainty and we are deeply uncomfortable with uncertainty.

The modern world... has no notion except that of simplifying something by destroying nearly everything.

As smoking is to the lungs, so is resentment to the soul; even one puff is bad for you.

A man can never quite understand a boy, even when he has been a boy.

If faith were rational , it wouldn't be -by definition- faith.

As there is no pleasure in military life for a soldier who fears death, so there is no independence in civil existence for the man who has an overpowering dread of solitude.

As funny as watching a man in a wig trying to hold down a job on a helipad

But I just wonder what it would be like to be able to go places without people recognizing me.

But if you can plant yourself in stillness long enough, you will, in time, experience the truth that everything (both uncomfortable and lovely) does eventually pass.

Comradeship is quite a different thing from friendship. . .

When I diagnose my depression now, I think it was partially about saying goodbye to these kids that I always expected to have but already knew that I wouldn't.

I like going to New York. I like the galleries and the theatre and the restaurants and bars and music. I think that city is more alive than Los Angeles.

You don't want to be so open minded that your brains fall out!

We lose our bearings entirely by speaking of the 'lower classes' when we mean humanity minus ourselves.

Id just love to have an audience and its the most fun in the world to get a new script every week and have the audience come in, and work with those actors.

The past is not what it was.

It is a glorious thing To be a Pirate King.

There are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematician that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one.

Business, especially big business, is now organized like an army. It is, as some would say, a sort of mild militarism without bloodshed; as I say, a militarism without the military virtues.

I am ashamed to admit I watch a lot of reality shows like The Osbournes and The Bachelor.

Most of all, I can choose my thoughts.

Big Business and State Socialism are very much alike, especially Big Business.