Quote

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

More quotes by John Gay

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Praising all alike, is praising none.
John Gay
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Envy is a kind of praise.
John Gay
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Gamesters and highwaymen are generally very good to their whores, but they are very devils to their wives.
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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Beasts kill for hunger, men for pay.
John Gay
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She who has never lov'd, has never liv'd.
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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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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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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Envy's a sharper spur than pay.
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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What will not luxury taste? Earth, sea, and air, Are daily ransack'd for the bill of fare. Blood stuffed in skins is British Christians' food, And France robs marshes of the croaking brood.
John Gay
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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
John Gay
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Fair words cost nothing.
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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Sure men were born to lie, and women to believe them!
John Gay
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To shoot at crows is powder flung away.
John Gay
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A man is always afraid of a woman that loves him too much
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.
John Gay
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To friendship every burden's light.
John Gay