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Learning by study must be won 'Twas ne'er entail'd from son to son.

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
Must
Entail
Twas
Son
Learning
Study

More quotes by 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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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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The luxury of doing good surpasses every other personal enjoyment.
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A man is always afraid of a woman that loves him too much
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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.
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Is there no hope? the sick man said, The silent doctor shook his head, And took his leave with signs of sorrow, Despairing of his fee to-morrow.
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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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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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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Fair is the marigold, for pottage meet.
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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Fair words cost nothing.
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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The fly that sips treacle is lost in the sweets.
John Gay
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I must have women - there is nothing unbends the mind like them.
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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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 beauty faults conspicuous grow The smallest speck is seen on snow.
John Gay
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Sure men were born to lie, and women to believe them!
John Gay
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[Gulliver was soon being read] from the cabinet council to the nursery.
John Gay