William Schwenk Gilbert Quotes

And the next day the gondolier came with a train of other gondoliers, all decked in their holiday garb, and on his gondola sat Angela, happy, and blushing at her happiness. Then he and she entered the house in which I dwelt, and came into my room (and it was strange indeed, after so many years of inversion, to see her with her head above her feet!), and then she wished me happiness and a speedy restoration to good health (which could never be); and I in broken words and with tears in my eyes, gave her the little silver crucifix that had stood by my bed or my table for so many years. And Angela took it reverently, and crossed herself, and kissed it, and so departed with her delighted husband.
And as I heard the song of the gondoliers as they went their way
the song dying away in the distance as the shadows of the sundown closed around me
I felt that they were singing the requiem of the only love that had ever entered my heart. ~ W.S. Gilbert

This one quotation could really serve as the emblem of this chapter: an artisan, who was touched by a neighbor, by a printed Bible in French, and above all by the Psalms. ~ William L. Holladay

Never assume the obvious is true. ~ William Safire

Most serious writers refuse to make themselves available to the things that technology is doing. I've never been able to understand this sort of fear. ~ William S. Burroughs

For to articulate sweet sounds together Is to work harder than all these, and yet Be thought an idler by the noisy set Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen The martyrs call the world. ~ William Butler Yeats

The more he asked about her childhood at Cloonhill the more Ellie loved her interrogator. No matter how strange he still sometimes seemed, she felt as if all her life she had known him. The past he talked about himself became another part of her: The games he had played alone, the untidy rooms of the house he described, the parties given, the pictures painted. Being with him in the woods at Lyre, where the air was cold and the trees imposed a gloomy darkness, or walking among the monks' graves, or being with him anywhere, telling or listening, was for Ellie more than friendship, or living, had ever been before. ~ William Trevor

If a story is in you, it has to come out. ~ William Faulkner

To downgrade the human mind is bad theology. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

Some are so very studious of learning what was done by the ancients that they know not how to live with the moderns. ~ William Penn

He only can create the greatest imaginable beauty who has endured all imaginable pangs, for only when we have seen and foreseen what we dread shall we be rewarded by that dazzling unforeseen wing-footed wanderer. ~ William Butler Yeats

A peculiarity of capital is that it cannot be employed productively without benefiting the community in which it is used. ~ William Feather

Here's the bottom line: I can't play someone if I can't figure out what he cares about. Everybody cares about something, even a rough character. It defines where we step in life. As soon as you find out what somebody cares about, then it all gets real. ~ William Fichtner

Everyone is responsible and no one is to blame. ~ William Schutz

Addictions [ ... ] started out like magical pets, pocket monsters. They did extraordinary tricks, showed you things you hadn't seen, were fun. But came, through some gradual dire alchemy, to make decisions for you. Eventually, they were making your most crucial life-decisions. And they were [ ... ] less intelligent than goldfish. ~ William Gibson

Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself, She turns to favor and to prettiness. ~ William Shakespeare

What a teacher needs to know about psychology "might almost be written on the palm of one's hand." ~ William James

There is none of my uncle's marks upon you; he taught me how to know a man in love; in which cage of rushes I am sure you are not prisoner. ~ William Shakespeare

A self-made man? Yes, and one who worships his creator. ~ William Cowper

His love was like the liberal air, embracing all, to cheer and bless. ~ William Wordsworth

Reserve may be pride fortified in ice; dignity is worth reposing on truth. ~ William Rounseville Alger

How many things by season season'd are, To their right praise and true perfection! ~ William Shakespeare

O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, / That I am meek and gentle with these butchers! ~ William Shakespeare

The letter from Dan Gilbert, the booing of the Cleveland fans, the jerseys being burned
seeing all that was hard for them. My emotions were more mixed. It was easy to say, 'OK, I don't want to deal with these people ever again.' But then you think about the other side. What if I were a kid who looked up to an athlete, and that athlete made me want to do better in my own life, and then he left? How would I react? I've met with Dan, face-to-face, man-to-man. We've talked it out. Everybody makes mistakes. I've made mistakes as well. Who am I to hold a grudge? ~ LeBron James

Do not compute the totality of your poultry population until all the manifestations of incubation have been entirely completed. ~ William Jennings Bryan

With all respect to the Buddha and to the early Christian celibates, I sometimes wonder if all this teaching about nonattachment and the spiritual importance of monastic solitude might be denying us something quite vital. Maybe all that renunciation of intimacy denies us the opportunity to ever experience that very earthbound, domesticated, dirt-under-the-fingernails gift of the difficult, long-term, daily forgiveness {...} Maybe creating a big enough space within your consciousness to hold and accept someone's contradictions - someone's idiocies, even - is a kind of divine act. Perhaps transcendence can be found not only on solitary mountaintops or in monastic settings, but also at your own kitchen table, in the daily acceptance of your partner's most tiresome, irritating faults. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

However keen the insight of Shakespeare may have been into the hearts of his high-born characters, he had no conception of the unity of the human race. For him the prince and the peasant were not of the same blood. ~ William Shakespeare

Just in case, he had asked Ms. Townson to call him if William talked about leaving town. He hadn't, obviously, making it possible now for him and William to dig through the refrigerator and stand at the counter making sandwiches together, all of which felt delightfully domestic. This would be their life together. Spreading margarine on white bread and debating if Swiss or American cheese was better. With any luck, they would be spending countless days this way, doing little mundane tasks that were so much better with someone to share them with. ~ Jay Bell

The mere idea of marriage, as a strong possibility, if not always nowadays a reasonable likelihood, existing to weaken the will by distracting its straight aim in the life of practically every young girl, is the simple secret of their confessed inferiority in men's pursuits and professions to-day. ~ William Bolitho

There are fewer chemical pollutants in the air. Our drinking water is safer. Our food standards have been raised. We've cleaned up more toxic waste sites in three years than the previous administrations did in twelve. The environment is cleaner, and we have fought off the most vigorous assault on environmental protection since we began to protect the environment in 1970. We are moving in the right direction to the 21st century. ~ William J. Clinton

I am older at twenty than a lot of people who have died. ~ William Faulkner

Who are you?"
"No one of consequence."
"I must know."
"Get used to disappointment. ~ William Goldman

My first assistant-coaching job in football was at William & Mary in 1961. The pay wasn't much, so to get $300 more per year, I agreed to coach the golf team. I didn't even know how to keep score, and really, my main job was not to wreck the van on the way to tournaments. ~ Lou Holtz

I would give all of my fame for a pot of ale and safety. ~ William Shakespeare