Douglas William Jerrold Quotes

Some of 'em [virtues] like extinct volcanoes,
with a strong memory or fire and brimstone.

Modesty is a bright dish-cover, which makes us fancy there is something very nice underneath it.

Dogmation is puppyism come to its full growth.

What a fine-looking thing is war!
Yet, dress it as we may, dress and feather it, daub it with gold, huzza it, and sing swaggering songs about it,
what is it, nine times out of ten, but murder in uniform!

The sharp employ the sharp; verily, a man may be known by his attorney.

Etiquette has no regard for moral qualities.

We are all slaves to the shining metal.

Wits, like drunken men with swords, are apt to draw their steel upon their best acquaintances.

Self-defense is the clearest of all laws; and for this reason - the lawyers didn't make it.

Women, somehow, have the same fear of witty men as of fireworks.

What women would do if they could not cry, nobody knows. What poor, defenceless creatures they would be!

Jewels! It's my belief that when woman was made, jewels were invented only to make her the more mischievous.

Troubles are like babies - they only grow by nursing.

Wit, like money, bears an extra value when rung down immediately it is wanted. Men pay severely who require credit.

There are some people as obtuse in recognizing an argument as they are in appreciating wit. You couldn't drive it into their heads with a hammer.

Religion is in the heart, not in the knees.

Nothing is so beneficial to a young author as the advice of a man whose judgment stands constitutionally at the freezing-point.

The language of women should be luminous, but not voluminous.

In this world truth can wait; she is used to it.

Love's like the measles - all the worse when it comes late in life.

A man, so to speak, who is not able to bow to his own conscience every morning is hardly in a condition to respectfully salute the world at any other time of the day.

Not peace at any price! Chains are worse than bayonets.

That questionable superfluity small beer.

Quality, not quantity, is my measure.

A man is in no danger so long as he talks his love; but to write it is to impale himself on his own pothooks.

Literature, like a gypsy, to be picturesque, should be a little ragged.

Nature designed us to be of good cheer.

If slander be a snake, it is a winged one - it flies as well as creeps.

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.

Humor is the harmony of the heart.

A piece of simple goodness
a letter gushing from the heart; a beautiful unstudied vindication of the worth and untiring sweetness of human nature
a record of the invulnerability of man, armed with high purpose, sanctified by truth.

After all there is something about a wedding-gown prettier than in any other gown in the world.

Wishes, at least, are the easy pleasures of the poor.

The only athletic sport I ever mastered was backgammon.

Fix yourself upon the wealthy. In a word, take this for a golden rule through life: Never, never have a friend that is poorer than yourself.

The best thing I know between France and England is the sea.

God said, "Let us make man in our image." Man said, 'Let us make God in our image.

Intemperance is the epitome of every crime, the cause of every kind of misery.

The blackest of fluid is used as an agent to enlighten the world.

Love the sea? I dote upon it
from the beach.

Earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest.

Keep your eyes and ears open, if you desire to get on in the world.

That man is thought a dangerous knave, Or zealot plotting crime, Who for advancement of his kind Is wiser than his time.

Gravity is more suggestive than convincing.

Nothing can be truer than fairy wisdom. It is as true as sunbeams.

Reputations, like beavers and cloaks, shall last some people twice the time of others.

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 wand, it changes to a snake.

Malice blunts the point of wit.

If an earthquake were to engulf England tomorrow, the English would manage to meet and dine somewhere among the rubbish, just to celebrate the event.

Marriage is like wine. It is not be properly judged until the second glass.