Inspirational Quotes by Douglas William Jerrold (English Dramatist)

Inspirational Quotations by Douglas William Jerrold (English Dramatist)

Douglas William Jerrold (1803–57) was an English dramatist, journalist, and humorist whose work appeared in prominent journals of his time. None of his plays has survived, even though he had contemporaneous success as a playwright.

Born in London, Jerrold joined the navy as a midshipman in 1813, apprenticed with a printer, became a dramatic author of the Surrey Theatre, and then worked as a compositor on the Sunday Monitor 1819 before becoming its drama critic.

Jerrold achieved success in the theatre with Black-Eyed Susan (1829,) a nautical melodrama that draws on the patriotic tar (sailor) while critiquing authoritarianism in the British Navy.

Jerrold also edited the Illuminated Magazine 1843–44, Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine 1845–48, Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Newspaper 1846–48 and from 1852 Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper.

From 1841, Jerrold was one of the contributors to the newly launched humorous journal Punch, writing under the pseudonym ‘Q.’ He mastered an exclusive brand of Victorian humor in a series of articles called “Mrs. Caudle’s Curtain Lectures” (1845) for Punch.

A prolific journalist, Jerrold wrote much that is bitter and personal, in sharp contrast to the cheerfulness of his “Curtain Lectures,” which appeared in book form (1846) and regularly reprinted. His comedies, The Bride of Ludgate (1831,) Time Works Wonders (1845,) and The Catspaw (1850,) were less successful. William Makepeace Thackeray illustrated Jerrold’s studies of Men of Character (1838.)

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Douglas William Jerrold

Slugs crawl and crawl over our cabbages, like the world’s slander over a good name. You may kill them, it is true, but there is the slime.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Slander

Habitual intoxication is the epitome of every crime.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Drunkenness

Treason is like diamonds; there is nothing to be made by the small trader.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Revolution

If an earthquake were to engulf England tomorrow, the English would manage to meet and dine somewhere among the rubble, just to celebrate the event.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Britain

Wedlock’s like wine, not properly judged of till the second glass.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Marriage

He is one of those wise philanthropists who, in a time of famine, would vote for nothing, but a supply of toothpicks.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Charity

Conscience, though ever so small a worm while we live, grows suddenly into a serpent on our deathbed.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Conscience

O, glorious laughter! thou man-loving spirit, that for a time doth take the burden from the weary back, that doth lay salve to the weary feet, bruised and cut by flints and shards.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Laughter

Some people are so fond of ill-luck that they run half-way to meet it.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Optimism, Luck

What would women do if they could not cry?—What poor, defenceless creatures they would be.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Tears

Honest bread is very well, it’s butter that makes the temptation.
—Douglas William Jerrold

Etiquette has no regard for moral qualities.
—Douglas William Jerrold

The last word is the most dangerous of infernal machines, and the husband and wife should no more fight to get it than they would struggle for the possession of a lighted bombshell.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Marriage, Family, Words

How beautiful can time with goodness make an old man look.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Age

In all of the wedding cake, hope is the sweetest of plums.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Marriage

Fortunes made in no time are like shirts made in no time; it’s ten to one if they hang long together.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Fortune

We love peace, but not peace at any price.—There is a peace more destructive of the manhood of living man, than war is destructive of his body.—Chains are worse than bayonets.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Peace

Happiness grows at our own firesides, and is not to be picked in stranger’s gardens.
—Douglas William Jerrold

Many a man who now lacks shoe-leather would wear golden spurs if knighthood were the reward of worth.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Worth

Soldiers looked at as they ought to be are to the world as poppies to corn fields.
—Douglas William Jerrold

A conservative is a man who will not look at the new moon, out of respect for that “ancient institution,” the old one.
—Douglas William Jerrold

A strange volume of real life in the daily packet of the postman. Eternal love and instant payment.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Letters

There is a sanctity in suffering when meekly born. Our duty, though set about by thorns, may still be made a staff, supporting even while it tortures. Cast it away, and, like the prophet’s rod, it changes to a snake.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Trials

Marriage is like wine. It is not properly judged until the second glass.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Marriage

A duellist is only a Cain in high life.
—Douglas William Jerrold

Dress it as we may, feather it, daub it with gold, huzza it, and sing swaggering songs about it, what is war, nine times out of ten, but murder in uniform?
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: War

He was so benevolent, so merciful a man that, in his mistaken passion, he would have held an umbrella over a duck in a shower of rain.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Kindness

It is a beautiful necessity of our nature to love something.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Love

The surest way to hit a woman’s heart is to take aim kneeling.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Heart

Reputations, like beavers and cloaks, shall last some people twice the time of others.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Reputation