1.
Love, unrequited, robs me of my rest:
Love, hopeless love, my ardent soul encumbers:
Love, nightmare-like, lies heavy on my chest,
And weaves itself into my midnight slumbers!
W. S. Gilbert
2.
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.
W. S. Gilbert
3.
When everyone is somebody, then no one's anybody.
W. S. Gilbert
4.
He did nothing in particular, and did it very well.
W. S. Gilbert
5.
To sit in solemn silence on a dull, dark dock in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp shock from a cheap and chippy chopper on a big, black block.
W. S. Gilbert
6.
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."
W. S. Gilbert
7.
I'm really very sorry for you all, but it's an unjust world, and virtue is triumphant only in theatrical performances.
W. S. Gilbert
8.
Deerstalking would be a very fine sport if only the deer had guns.
W. S. Gilbert
9.
Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.
W. S. Gilbert
10.
No one can have a higher opinion of him than I have; and I think he's a dirty little beast.
W. S. Gilbert
11.
Life's a pudding full of plums.
W. S. Gilbert
12.
It's love that makes the world go round.
W. S. Gilbert
13.
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.
W. S. Gilbert
14.
What though I cannot meet my bills?
What though I suffer toothache's ills?
What though I swallow countless pills?
W. S. Gilbert
15.
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.
W. S. Gilbert
16.
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!
W. S. Gilbert
17.
Oh, wouldn't the world seem dull and flat with nothing whatever to grumble at?
W. S. Gilbert
18.
Saturday afternoon, although occurring at regular and well-foreseen intervals, always takes this railway by surprise.
W. S. Gilbert
19.
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!
W. S. Gilbert
20.
Things are seldom what they seem.
W. S. Gilbert
21.
Roll on, thou ball, roll on!
Through pathless realms of Space,
Roll on!
W. S. Gilbert
22.
Isn't your life extremely flat,With nothing to grumble at?
W. S. Gilbert
23.
every Jack
He must study the knack
If he wants to make sure of his Jill!
W. S. Gilbert
24.
The Law is the true embodiment of everything that's excellent; it has no kind of fault or flaw and I, my Lords, embody the Law.
W. S. Gilbert
25.
The privilege and pleasure That we treasure beyond measure Is to run on little errands for the Ministers of State.
W. S. Gilbert
26.
If you give me your attention, I will tell you what I am:
I'm a genuine philanthropist--all other kinds are sham.
Each little fault of temper and each social defect
In my erring fellow creatures, I endeavor to correct.
W. S. Gilbert
27.
Life is a joke that's just begun.
W. S. Gilbert
28.
Wherever valor true is found, true modesty will there abound.
W. S. Gilbert
29.
The idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone, All centuries but this, and every country but his own.
W. S. Gilbert
30.
A man is but an ass
Who fights in a cuirass
W. S. Gilbert
31.
There's fish in the sea, no doubt of it, As good as ever came out of it.
W. S. Gilbert
32.
When Wellington thrashed Bonaparte,
As every child can tell,
The House of Peers, throughout the war,
Did nothing in particular,
And did it very well
W. S. Gilbert
33.
I am the very model of a modern major general
W. S. Gilbert
34.
Darwinian man, though well-behaved, at best is only a monkey shaved.
W. S. Gilbert
35.
So I fell in love with a rich attorney's
Elderly ugly daughter.
W. S. Gilbert
36.
If you're anxious to shine in the high aesthetic line as a man of culture rare, you must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms, and plant them everywhere.
W. S. Gilbert
37.
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
W. S. Gilbert
38.
It isn't so much what's on the table that matters, as what's on the chairs.
W. S. Gilbert
39.
A policeman's lot is not a happy one
W. S. Gilbert
40.
Man is nature's sole mistake.
W. S. Gilbert
41.
In all the woes that curse our race there is a lady in the case.
W. S. Gilbert
42.
After many unhappy experiments in the direction of an ideal Republic, it was found that what may be described as a Despotism tempered by Dynamite provides, on the whole, the most satisfactory description of ruler - an autocrat who dares not abuse his autocratic power.
W. S. Gilbert
43.
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.
W. S. Gilbert
44.
I love my fellow creatures - I do all the good I can - yet everybody says I'm such a disagreeable man!
W. S. Gilbert
45.
When every blessed thing you have is made of silver, or of gold, you long for simple pewter.
W. S. Gilbert
46.
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!
W. S. Gilbert
47.
I am the very model of a modern Major-General, I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral, I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical, From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical.
W. S. Gilbert
48.
I always voted at my party's call, and I never thought of thinking for myself at all.
W. S. Gilbert
49.
Then a sentimental passion of a vegetable fashion must excite your
languid spleen,
An attachment a la Plato for a bashful young potato, or a
not-too-French French bean!
W. S. Gilbert
50.
When a felon s not engaged in his employment, Or maturing his felonious little plans, His capacity for innocent enjoyment Is just as great as any honest mans.
W. S. Gilbert
