W. S. Gilbert Quotes

It isn't so much what's on the table that matters, as what's on the chairs.

He did nothing in particular, and did it very well.

It's love that makes the world go round.

Oh, wouldn't the world seem dull and flat with nothing whatever to grumble at?

When everyone is somebody, then no one's anybody.

I'm really very sorry for you all, but it's an unjust world, and virtue is triumphant only in theatrical performances.

Life's a pudding full of plums.

Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.

Oh, don't the days seem lank and long When all goes right and nothing goes wrong, And isn't your life extremely flat With nothing whatever to grumble at!

Deerstalking would be a very fine sport if only the deer had guns.

No one can have a higher opinion of him than I have; and I think he's a dirty little beast.

I'm very good at integral and differential calculus, I know the scientific names of beings animalculous; In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral, I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

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 Captain of the Pinafore ; And a right good captain too! . . . . And I'm never, never sick at sea! What, never? No, never! What never? Hardly ever! He's hardly ever sick at sea! Then give three cheers, and one cheer more, For the hardy Captain of the Pinafore!

Life's perhaps the only riddle That we shrink from giving up.

When in that House MPs divide/If they've a brain and cerebellum, too/They've got to leave that brain outside/And vote just as their leaders tell 'em to.

I am, in point of fact, a particularly haughty and exclusive person, of pre-Adamite ancestral descent. You will understand this when I tell you that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule.

Man is nature's sole mistake.

Life is a joke that's just begun.

As is gloriously sung in the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta "H.M.S. Pinafore," in the words of W. S. Gilbert: "Things are seldom as they seem, Skim milk masquerades as cream."

No good play is a success; fine writing and high morals are useless on the stage. I have been scribbling twaddle for thirty-five years to suit the public taste, and I should know.

Wherever valor true is found, true modesty will there abound.

I've an irritating chuckle, I've a celebrated sneer, I've an entertaining snigger, I've a fascinating leer; To everybody's prejudice I know a thing or two; I can tell a woman's age in half a minute--and I do

Saturday afternoon, although occurring at regular and well-foreseen intervals, always takes this railway by surprise.

In short, whoever you may be, To this conclusion you'll agree, When every one is somebodee, Then no one's anybody!