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Envy's a sharper spur than pay.

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
Sharper
Spur
Spurs
Envy
Pay

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You can only be called a hypocrite if you judge others first.
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Music might tame and civilize wild beasts, but 'tis evident it never yet could tame and civilize musicians.
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The luxury of doing good surpasses every other personal enjoyment.
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In beauty faults conspicuous grow The smallest speck is seen on snow.
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Sure men were born to lie, and women to believe them!
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To shoot at crows is powder flung away.
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[Gulliver was soon being read] from the cabinet council to the nursery.
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I must have women - there is nothing unbends the mind like them.
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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!
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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.
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Can you support the expense of a husband, hussy, in gaming, drinking and whoring? Have you money enough to carry on the daily quarrels of man and wife about who shall squander most?
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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.
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Fair is the marigold, for pottage meet.
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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.
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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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Youth's the season made for joys, Love is then our duty.
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Some folks of cider make a rout And cider's well enough no doubt When better liquors fail But wine, that's richer, better still, Ev'n wine itself (deny't who will) Must yield to nappy ale
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Gamesters and highwaymen are generally very good to their whores, but they are very devils to their wives.
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Breathe soft, ye winds! ye waves, in silence sleep!
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The fly that sips treacle is lost in the sweets.
John Gay