W. S. Gilbert Quotes

When maiden loves, she sits and sighs,
She wanders to and fro -
Unbidden tear-drops fill her eyes,
And to all questions she replies
With a sad "heigh ho!"

You have a daughter, Captain Reese,
Ten female cousins and a niece,
A ma, if what I'm told is true,
Six sisters and an aunt or two.
Now, somehow, Sir, it seems to me,
More friendly-like we all should be
If you united of them to
Unmarried members of the crew.

Pooh Bah: This professional conscientiousness is highly creditable to you, but it places us in a very awkward position.
Koko: My good sir, the awkwardness of your position is grace itself compared with that of a man engaged in the act of cutting off his own head.

One of you may be Baptisto's son, for anything I know to the contrary; but the other is no less a personage than the only son of the late King of Barataria. ... And I trust — I trust it was that one who slapped me on the shoulder and called me his man!

When I was a lad I served a term
As office boy to an attorney's firm.
I cleaned the wndows and I swept the floor,
And I polished up the handle of the big front door.
I polished up that handle so carefullee
That now I am the Ruler of the Queen's Navee!

Oh, I am a cook and a captain bold
And the mate of the Nancy brig,
And a bo'sun tight and a midshipmite
And the crew of the captain's gig.

She may very well pass for forty three
In the dusk with the light behind her.

If you want a receipt for that popular mystery,
Known to the world as a Heavy Dragoon -
Take all the remarkable people in history,
Rattle them off to a popular tune!

When your process of extermination begins, let our deaths be as swift and painless as you can conveniently make them.

I love my fellow-creatures, I do all the good I can,
Yet everybody says I'm such a disagreeable man
And I can't think why!

What, never? / No, never! / What, never? / Well, hardly ever!

No, Frederic, it cannot be. I don’t think much of our profession, but, contrasted with respectability, it is comparatively honest.

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

Some word that teems with hidden meaning, like "Basingstoke". It might recall me to my saner self. For, after all, I am only Mad Margaret! Daft Meg! Poor Meg! He! he! he!

Yes, I am the Apostle of Simplicity. I am called Archibald the All-Right, for I am infallible.