William Gilbert Quotes

My dear chap! Good isn’t the word!

Do you know how they are going to decide the Shakespeare – Bacon dispute? They are going to dig up Shakespeare and dig up Bacon; they are going to get Tree to recite Hamlet to them. And the one who turns in his coffin will be the author of the play.

Funny without being vulgar.

I am a courtier grave and serious Who is about to kiss your hand: Try to combine a pose imperious With a demean our nobly bland.

This particularly rapid unintelligible patter Isn’t generally heard, and if it is it doesn’t matter!

And there he plays extravagant matches In fit less finger-stalls On a cloth untrue With a twisted cue And elliptical billiard balls.

My object all sublime I shall achieve in time – To let the punishment fit the crime.

As in a month you’ve got to die If Ko-Ko tells us true, ’Twere empty compliment to cry ‘Long life to Nanki-Poo!’ But as one month you have to live  As fellow-citizen, This toast with three times three we’ll give – ‘Long life to you – till then!’

To sit in solemn silence in 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!

Three little maids from school are we, Pert as a school-girl well can be Filled to the brim with girlish glee.

A wandering minstrel I – A thing of shreds and patches Of ballads, songs and snatches And dreamy lullaby!

Oh, doughty sons of Hungary! May all success Attend and bless Your warlike ironmongery!

Expressive glances Shall be our lances And pops of Sillery Our light artillery.

When you’re lying awake with a dismal headache, and repose is taboo by anxiety, I conceive you may use any language you choose to indulge in, without impropriety.

I am the monarch of the sea, The Ruler of the Queen’s Navee, Whose praise Great Britain loudly chants And we are his sisters, and his cousins, and his aunts!

So I fell in love with a rich attorney’s Elderly, ugly daughter.

In spite of all temptations To belong to other nations, He remains an Englishman!

Climbing over rocky mountain, Skipping rivulet and fountain.

I often think it’s comical How Nature always does contrive That every boy and every gal That’s born into the world alive Is either a little Liberal  Or else a little Conservative!

I’m called little Buttercup – dear Little Buttercup, Though I could never tell why.