Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911) was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for the fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan. The most famous of these include H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and one of the most frequently performed works in the history of musical theatre, The Mikado. These, as well as several of the other Savoy operas, continue to be frequently performed in the English-speaking world and beyond by opera companies, repertory companies, schools and community theatre groups. Lines from these works have become part of the English language, such as “short, sharp shock”, “What, never? Well, hardly ever!”, and “Let the punishment fit the crime”.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by W. S. Gilbert
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
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
When constabulary duty’s to be done, a policeman’s lot is not a happy one.
—W. S. Gilbert
Topics: Law
Darwinian man, though well-behaved, at best is only a monkey shaved.
—W. S. Gilbert
Topics: Evolution
My family pride is something inconceivable. I can’t help it. I was born sneering.
—W. S. Gilbert
Topics: Pride
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
When every blessed thing you have is made of silver, or of gold, you long for simple pewter.
—W. S. Gilbert
Topics: Reality, Opportunities
I always voted at my party’s call, and I never thought of thinking for myself at all.
—W. S. Gilbert
Topics: Voting, Elections
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
The idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone, All centuries but this, and every country but his own.
—W. S. Gilbert
Topics: Satisfaction
Deer hunting would be fine sport, if only the deer had guns.
—W. S. Gilbert
Topics: Hunting
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
Matrimonial devotion doesn’t seem to suit her notion.
—W. S. Gilbert
Topics: Marriage
Oh, wouldn’t the world seem dull and flat with nothing whatever to grumble at?
—W. S. Gilbert
Topics: Complaining
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
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: Opinions, Opinion
It isn’t so much what’s on the table that matters, as what’s on the chairs.
—W. S. Gilbert
Topics: Eating, Food
You have no idea what a poor opinion I have of myself; and how little I deserve it.
—W. S. Gilbert
Topics: Inferiority
Things are seldom what they seem.
—W. S. Gilbert
Topics: Appearance
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