Reproachful speech from either side The want of argument supplied; They rail, reviled; as often ends The contests of disputing friends.
—John Gay
Topics: Arguments
I must have women—there is nothing unbends the mind like them.
—John Gay
Topics: Men & Women, Women, Men
Fill it up. I take as large draughts of liquor as I did of love. I hate a flincher in either.
—John Gay
Topics: Alcohol, Alcoholism
From wine what sudden friendship springs.
—John Gay
Topics: One liners, Wine
How the mother is to be pitied who hath handsome daughters! Locks, bolts, bars, and lectures of morality are nothing to them: they break through them all. They have as much pleasure in cheating a father and mother, as in cheating at cards.
—John Gay
Topics: Family
If the heart of a man is depressed with cares, The mist is dispelled when a woman appears.
—John Gay
Topics: Depression
Do you think your mother and I should have lived comfortably so long together, if ever we had been married? Baggage!
—John Gay
Topics: Marriage
Life is a jest, and All things show it; I thought so once, But now I know it.
—John Gay
In every rank, both great and small, it is industry that supports us all.
—John Gay
Topics: Industry
Pride is increased by ignorance; those assume the most who know the least.
—John Gay
Topics: Pride
To cheat a man is nothing; but the woman must have fine parts, indeed, who cheats a woman.
—John Gay
Topics: Cheating
The comfortable estate of widowhood is the only hope that keeps up a wife’s spirits.
—John Gay
But money, wife, is the true Fuller’s Earth for reputations, there is not a spot or a stain but what it can take out.
—John Gay
Topics: Money
O Polly, you might have toyed and kissed, by keeping men off, you keep them on.
—John Gay
Topics: Men & Women
What will not luxury taste? Earth, sea, and air, Are daily ransack’d for the bill of fare. Blood stuffed in skins is British Christians’ food, And France obs marshes of the croaking brood.
—John Gay
Topics: Eating
The brave love mercy, and delight to save.
—John Gay
Topics: Brave, Bravery, Courage
Learning by study must be won; ’twas, ne’er entailed from sire to son.
—John Gay
Topics: Learning
We only part to meet again.
—John Gay
Topics: Last Words
Cowards are cruel, but the brave love mercy and delight to save.
—John Gay
Topics: Cowardice, Coward
Sure men were born to lie, and women to believe them!
—John Gay
Topics: Men & Women, Men, Women
Can you support the expense of a husband, hussy, in gaming, drinking and whoring? Have you money enough to carry on the daily quarrels of man and wife about who shall squander most?
—John Gay
Topics: Marriage
But his kiss was so sweet, and so closely he pressed, that I languished and pined till I granted the rest.
—John Gay
Fortune may find a pot, but your own industry must make it boil.
—John Gay
Topics: Industry
Variety’s the source of joy below, from which still fresh revolving pleasures flow; in books and love, the mind one end pursues, and only change the expiring flame renews.
—John Gay
On the choice of friends, Our good or evil name depends.
—John Gay
Topics: Evil
The luxury of doing good surpasses every other personal enjoyment.
—John Gay
An open foe may prove a curse, but a pretended friend is worse.
—John Gay
Topics: Friends and Friendship
Lions, wolves, and vultures don’t live together in herds, droves or flocks. Of all animals of prey, man is the only sociable one. Every one of us preys upon his neighbor, and yet we herd together.
—John Gay
Topics: Communism, Socialism
No retreat. No retreat. They must conquer or die who’ve no retreat.
—John Gay
Topics: Victory
A rich rogue nowadays is fit company for any gentleman; and the world, my dear, hath not such a contempt for roguery as you imagine.
—John Gay
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- John Webster English Dramatist
- W. S. Gilbert English Dramatist
- Ben Jonson English Dramatist
- William Wycherley English Dramatist
- Arthur Helps British Essayist, Historian
- Arthur Wing Pinero English Playwright
- Douglas William Jerrold English Dramatist
- John Lyly English Dramatist, Author
- Philip Massinger English Playwright
- Percy Bysshe Shelley English Poet
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