W.S. Gilbert Quotes

To downgrade the human mind is bad theology.

If man is not the image of God, then he is a disease of the dust.

Don't be afraid. Don't be daunted. Just do your job. Continue to show up for your piece of it, whatever that might be.

The more exquisitely and delightfully you can do nothing, the higher your life's achievement.

Fame is a lot of fun, but it's not interesting. I loved being noticed and praised, even the banquets. But they didn't have anything that I wanted. After about six months, I found it boring.

Everybody get drunk and make bad decisions.

I'm not scared to lose, I'm not scared to get knocked out. I'm scared of not going for it.

I consider a good dinner party at our house to be where people drink and eat more than they're meant to.

No animal ever invented anything as bad as drunkenness - or so good as drink.

I would never commit the positively anti-social action of robbing a bank, or worse still, working in one.

You cannot grow a beard in a moment of passion.

You might get nothing out of it at all except a beautiful, long life where all you did was follow your gorgeous curiosity. And that should be enough too.

Real, sane, mature love—the kind that pays the mortgage year after year and picks up the kids after school—is not based on infatuation but on affection and respect.

Biology will relate every human gene to the genes of other animals and bacteria, to this great chain of being.

Childlessness doesn't make people selfish; selfishness makes people selfish.

The one perfectly divine thing, the one glimpse of God's paradise given on earth, is to fight a losing battle - and not lose it.

When every blessed thing you have is made of silver, or of gold, you long for simple pewter.

It's true I've got no shirts to wear; It's true my butcher's bill is due; It's true my prospects all look blue - But don't let that unsettle you.

I love my fellow creatures - I do all the good I can - yet everybody says I'm such a disagreeable man!

Faint heart never won fair lady! Nothing venture, nothing win Blood is thick, but water's thin In for a penny, in for a pound It's Love that makes the world go 'round!

I am the planet's most affectionate life-form, something like the cross between a golden retriever and a barnacle.

I'm vain enough to think that I've made a successful life. I've had everything I've ever wanted. You can't beat that.

What we feel most has no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses and birds.

I crossed the street to walk in the sunshine.

Myths often do a lot of theoretical good, while they are still new.

There is no refuge from memory and remorse in this world. The spirits of our foolish deeds haunt us, with or without repentance.

[No society can survive the socialist] fallacy that there is an absolutely unlimited number of inspired officials and an absolutely unlimited amount of money to pay them.

It is only the young and callow and ignorant that admire rashness. Think before you speak. Know your subject.

a woman's place is in the kitchen...sitting in a comfortable chair, with her feet up, drinking a glass of wine and watching her husband cook dinner.

In a world where everything is ridiculous, nothing can be ridiculed. You cannot unmask a mask.

We can’t turn life into a pleasure. But we can choose such pleasures as are worthy of us and our immortal souls.

What is called matriarchy is simply moral anarchy, in which the mother alone remains fixed because all the fathers are fugitive and irresponsible.

The center of every man's existence is a dream.

Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.

The word happiness is used to indicate at least three related things, which we might roughly call emotional happiness, moral happiness, and judgmental happiness.

Daybreak is a never-ending glory; getting out of bed is a never ending nuisance.

One pleasant surprise was when I interviewed Butch Patrick. I was expecting this bitter old drunk, and instead he had a total sense of humor about his career and his drinking and drug problem.

children are simply human beings who are allowed to do what everyone else really desires to do, as for instance, to fly kites, or when seriously wronged to emit prolonged screams for several minutes.

The man who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world... The reason is obvious. In a large community we can choose our companions. In a small community our companions are chosen for us.

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

A nation that has nothing but its amusements will not be amused for long.

An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.

It's not the world that's got so much worse but the news coverage that's got so much better.

Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.

Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.

You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.

If I had only one sermon to preach it would be a sermon against pride.

Virtue is not the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell.

I changed the face of comedy. I used to be funny.

I'm known for my slightly inappropriate remarks.