My family pride is something inconceivable. I can’t help it. I was born sneering.
—W. S. Gilbert
Topics: Pride
You have no idea what a poor opinion I have of myself; and how little I deserve it.
—W. S. Gilbert
Topics: Inferiority
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
Topics: Ancestors, Ancestry
Down went the owners—greedy men whom hope of gain allured: oh, dry the starting tear, for they were heavily insured.
—W. S. Gilbert
Topics: Disasters, Tragedy
Deer hunting would be fine sport, if only the deer had guns.
—W. S. Gilbert
Topics: Hunting
It isn’t so much what’s on the table that matters, as what’s on the chairs.
—W. S. Gilbert
Topics: Food, Eating
I always voted at my party’s call, and I never thought of thinking for myself at all.
—W. S. Gilbert
Topics: Voting, Elections
The idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone, All centuries but this, and every country but his own.
—W. S. Gilbert
Topics: Satisfaction
No one can have a higher opinion of him than I have; and I think he’s a dirty little beast.
—W. S. Gilbert
Topics: Opinion, Opinions
I often think it’s comical how nature always does contrive that every boy and every gal, that’s born into this world alive, is either a little Liberal, or else a little Conservative.
—W. S. Gilbert
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
Oh, wouldn’t the world seem dull and flat with nothing whatever to grumble at?
—W. S. Gilbert
Topics: Complaining
Darwinian man, though well-behaved, at best is only a monkey shaved.
—W. S. Gilbert
Topics: Evolution
When constabulary duty’s to be done, a policeman’s lot is not a happy one.
—W. S. Gilbert
Topics: Law
Things are seldom what they seem.
—W. S. Gilbert
Topics: Appearance
I love my fellow creatures—I do all the good I can—yet everybody says I’m such a disagreeable man!
—W. S. Gilbert
Topics: Charity
When every blessed thing you have is made of silver, or of gold, you long for simple pewter.
—W. S. Gilbert
Topics: Opportunities, Reality
He led his regiment from behind –
He found it less exciting.
But when away his regiment ran,
His place was at the fore, O.
—W. S. Gilbert
Topics: The Military, Leadership
Matrimonial devotion doesn’t seem to suit her notion.
—W. S. Gilbert
Topics: Marriage
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- John Gay English Poet, Dramatist
- Arthur Wing Pinero English Playwright
- John Webster English Dramatist
- Ben Jonson English Dramatist
- William Wycherley English Dramatist
- Metastasio Italian Poet
- Arthur Helps British Essayist, Historian
- Douglas William Jerrold English Dramatist
- John Lyly English Dramatist, Author
- Philip Massinger English Playwright
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