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In beauty faults conspicuous grow The smallest speck is seen on snow.

John Gay

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John Gay
Age: 47 †
Born: 1685
Born: June 30
Died: 1732
Died: December 4
Librettist
Playwright
Poet
Writer
Barnstaple
Devon
Grow
Seen
Grows
Speck
Beauty
Conspicuous
Specks
Smallest
Snow
Faults

More quotes by John Gay

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Nor love, not honor, wealth nor power, can give the heart a cheerful hour when health is lost. Be timely wise With health all taste of pleasure flies.
John Gay
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Fill ev'ry glass, for wine inspires us, And fires us With courage, love and joy. Women and wine should life employ. Is there ought else on earth desirous?
John Gay
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Lions, wolves, and vultures don't live together in herds, droves or flocks. Of all animals of prey, man is the only sociable one. Every one of us preys upon his neighbor, and yet we herd together.
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Envy's a sharper spur than pay: No author ever spar'd a brother Wits are gamecocks to one another.
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Why is the hearse with scutcheons blazon'd round, And with the nodding plume of ostrich crown'd? No the dead know it not, nor profit gain It only serves to prove the living vain.
John Gay
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To frame the little animal, provide All the gay hues that wait on female pride: Let Nature guide thee sometimes golden wire The shining bellies of the fly require The peacock's plumes thy tackle must not fail, Nor the dear purchase of the sable's tail.
John Gay
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In every age and clime we see Two of a trade can never agree.
John Gay
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She who has never lov'd, has never liv'd.
John Gay
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Whence is thy learning? Hath thy toil O'er books consumed the midnight oil?
John Gay
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Do you think your mother and I should have lived comfortably so long together, if ever we had been married? Baggage!
John Gay
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Who hath not heard the rich complain Of surfeits, and corporeal pain? He barr'd from every use of wealth, Envies the ploughman's strength and health.
John Gay
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The fly that sips treacle is lost in the sweets.
John Gay
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O Polly, you might have toyed and kissed, by keeping men off, you keep them on.
John Gay
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[Gulliver was soon being read] from the cabinet council to the nursery.
John Gay
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I must have women - there is nothing unbends the mind like them.
John Gay
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The luxury of doing good surpasses every other personal enjoyment.
John Gay
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Man may escape from rope and gun Nay, some have outlived the doctor's pill: Who takes a woman must be undone, That basilisk is sure to kill. The fly that sips treacle is lost in the sweets, So he that tastes woman, woman, woman, He that tastes woman, ruin meets.
John Gay
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A rich rogue nowadays is fit company for any gentleman and the world, my dear, hath not such a contempt for roguery as you imagine.
John Gay
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Around the steel no tortur'd worm shall twine, No blood of living insect stain my line Let me, less cruel, cast the feather'd hook, With pliant rod athwart the pebbled brook, Silent along the mazy margin stray, And with the fur-wrought fly delude the prey.
John Gay
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Music might tame and civilize wild beasts, but 'tis evident it never yet could tame and civilize musicians.
John Gay