W. S. Gilbert

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William Schwenck Gilbert (November 18, 1836 - May 29, 1911) was a British dramatist and librettist best known for his operatic collaborations with the composer Arthur Sullivan.

Sourced

• Things are seldom what they seem;
  Skim milk masquerades as cream.
  • H.M.S. Pinafore

• 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. Consequently, my family pride is something inconceivable. I can’t help it. I was born sneering.
  • The Mikado

• …in the first place, self decapitation is an extremely difficult, not to say dangerous, thing to attempt; and, in the second, it’s suicide, and suicide is a capital offence.
  • The Mikado

• 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!
  • The Mikado

• I have a left shoulder-blade that is a miracle of loveliness. People come miles to see it. My right elbow has a fascination that few can resist.
  • The Mikado

• Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.
  • The Mikado

• The Law is the true embodiment
  Of everything that’s excellent.
  It has no kind of fault or flaw,
  And I, my Lords, embody the Law.
  • Iolanthe

• The House of Peers, thoughout the war
  Did nothing in particular
  And did it very well.
  • Iolanthe

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

• ...a Man, however well-behav’d,
  At best is only a monkey shav’d!
  • Princess Ida

• When everyone is somebody, then no one's anybody.
  • The Gondoliers

• My name is John Wellington Wells
  I'm a dealer in magic and spells
  In blessings and curses
  And ever-filled purses
  In prophecies, witches, and knells
  If you want a proud foe to "make tracks"
  If you'd melt a rich uncle in wax
  You've but to look in on our resident Djinn
  Number seventy, Simmery Axe
  • The Sorcerer

Attributed

• Humour is a drug which it's the fashion to abuse.

• I suppose he expected to see me kissing all the carpenters
  • Comment on a (possibly apocryphal) conversation between Gilbert and a French designer during the first night of Princess Ida

• Take my daughters, most of whom are beauties
  • Modified libretto for the finale of Act II of The Pirates of Penzance in response to his not choosing the female chorus for a revival

• Beautiful Mabel, I'd sing if I could but I am not able!
  • Shouted from the stalls during rehearsals for The Pirates of Penzance when the actor playing Frederic was not present

External links

• Works by W. S. Gilbert at Project Gutenberg

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