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Envy's a sharper spur than pay: No author ever spar'd a brother Wits are gamecocks to one another.

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
Author
Envy
Spar
Brother
Sharper
Pay
Authorship
Another
Spur
Ever
Wits
Spurs
Wit

More quotes by 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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The charge is prepared the lawyers are met The judges all ranged (a terrible show!) I go, undismay'd. For death is a debt, A debt on demand. So take what I owe.
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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Praising all alike, is praising none.
John Gay
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The fly that sips treacle is lost in the sweets.
John Gay
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You can only be called a hypocrite if you judge others first.
John Gay
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Fools may our scorn, not envy, raise. For envy is a kind of praise.
John Gay
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To shoot at crows is powder flung away.
John Gay
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Beasts kill for hunger, men for pay.
John Gay
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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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O Polly, you might have toyed and kissed, by keeping men off, you keep them on.
John Gay
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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?
John Gay
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No retreat. No retreat. They must conquer or die who've no retreat.
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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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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Fair is the marigold, for pottage meet.
John Gay
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Shall ignorance of good and ill Dare to direct the eternal will? Seek virtue, and of that possest, To Providence resign the rest.
John Gay
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If the heart of a man is depressed with cares, The mist is dispelled when a woman appears.
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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[Gulliver was soon being read] from the cabinet council to the nursery.
John Gay