Top 50 Gelett Burgess Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Men like to pursue an elusive woman like a cake of wet soap – even men who hate baths.”

— Gelett Burgess

2. “The fear of women is the beginning of knowledge.”

— Gelett Burgess

3. “A good woman would rather be the mother of a genius than the wife of a hero.”

— Gelett Burgess

4. “Without bigots, eccentrics, cranks and heretics the world would not progress.”

— Gelett Burgess

5. “If you wish to be positive, which means youthful, never speak of the past any more than you can help.”

— Gelett Burgess

6. “Her heart is older than her head; yea, her emotion is the mother of her reason.”

— Gelett Burgess

7. “Love is only chatter, friends are all that matter.”

— Gelett Burgess

8. “Ah, yes! I wrote the “Purple Cow” – I’m sorry, now, I wrote it! But I can tell you anyhow, I’ll kill you if you quote it!”

— Gelett Burgess

9. “There is work that is work and there is play that is play; there is play that is work and work that is play. And in only one of these lies happiness.”

— Gelett Burgess

10. “Some women are to be captured by storm and some taken by siege; yet if there be not a traitor in her heart that shall deliver up the garrison, thou shalt not prevail over her.”

— Gelett Burgess

11. “It is in the blood of genius to love play for its own sake, and whether one uses one’s skill on thrones or women, swords or pens, gold or fame, the game’s the thing.”

— Gelett Burgess

12. “Old friends, we say, are best, when some sudden disillusionment shakes our faith in a new comrade.”

— Gelett Burgess

13. “Imagination is like a lofty building reared to meet the sky; whereas fancy is a balloon that soars at the wind’s will.”

— Gelett Burgess

14. “If in the last few years you have not discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead.”

— Gelett Burgess

15. “To appreciate nonsense requires a serious interest in life.”

— Gelett Burgess

16. “Thinking a smile all the time will keep your face youthful.”

— Gelett Burgess

17. “Beware of a woman who signeth not her name to her letters; she will bear watching, aye, she hath a past.”

— Gelett Burgess

18. “My feet, they haul me Round the House, They hoist me up the Stairs; I only have to steer them, and They Ride me Everywheres.”

— Gelett Burgess

19. “Count no matron happy until she hath passed thirty, and hath not waxed fat.”

— Gelett Burgess

20. “Our bodies are apt to be our autobiographies.”

— Gelett Burgess

21. “Most women have all other women as adversaries; most men have all other men as their allies.”

— Gelett Burgess

22. “Repeat not the manner of a flirtation; for lo, all the world shall hear of it, and women will taunt thee.”

— Gelett Burgess

23. “It was Matisse who took the first step into the undiscovered land of the ugly.”

— Gelett Burgess

24. “Son, heed my instruction, and apply thyself to know women; let thine eyes observe her when she is with another, for what she doeth with him, she will do with thee, also.”

— Gelett Burgess

25. “The world is full of women, and the women full of wile; so that a man, if he goeth not warily withal, shall surely fall a prey thereunto.”

— Gelett Burgess

26. “If thou makest a statement concerning women, lo, she shall immediately try to disprove it straightway. She goeth by contraries.”

— Gelett Burgess

27. “There is indeed no such thing in life as absolute darkness; one’s eyes revolt and hasten to fill the vacuum by floating in sparks, dream patterns, figures whimsical and figures grotesque, shifting and clad in complementary colors, to appease the indignant cups and rods of the retina.”

— Gelett Burgess

28. “A woman and a mouse, they carry a tale wherever they go.”

— Gelett Burgess

29. “To take the world as one finds it.”

— Gelett Burgess

30. “Can a woman entertain a man and a pet at the same time? I say unto thee, one of the twain shall suffer jealousy.”

— Gelett Burgess

31. “The temptation to vivify the tale and make it walk abroad on its own legs is hard to deny.”

— Gelett Burgess

32. “No man knoweth how another man maketh his love, for women tell not.”

— Gelett Burgess

33. “A woman findeth in her last lover much of her first love; but a man seeth his next-to-the-last love, alway.”

— Gelett Burgess

34. “Maxims are like lawyers who must need to see but one side of the case.”

— Gelett Burgess

35. “As the dog becomes thoroughbred in the laws of clan and caste; obedient, fraternal and loyal; so is the man who accepts the gentleman’s code.”

— Gelett Burgess

36. “To make fun of a person to his face is a brutal way of amusing one’s self; be delicate and cunning, and keep your laugh in your sleeve, lest you frighten away your game.”

— Gelett Burgess

37. “In the mind of a woman, to give birth to a child is the short cut to omniscience.”

— Gelett Burgess

38. “Verily, men do foolish things thoughtlessly, knowing not why; but no woman doeth aught without a reason.”

— Gelett Burgess

39. “Woo her not till thou hast seen her mother, for a score of years worketh wonders.”

— Gelett Burgess

40. “Tell not thy previous loves to a woman, lest she also telleth thee hers.”

— Gelett Burgess

41. “Love endeth like the chianti flask, its drops are bitter.”

— Gelett Burgess

42. “Seek one woman whom thou canst trust, and to her who lovest thee best, tell thy secrets. She will deliver thee from the hands of strange women, she will expose their craft; and of her who flattereth thee, will she make known the reason.”

— Gelett Burgess

43. “A maiden’s first kiss cometh hard, yea, it is as the first olive out of a bottle, requiring much skill; but the rest are easy.”

— Gelett Burgess

44. “Every person has some splendid traits and if we confine our contacts so as to bring those traits into action, there is no need of ever being bored or irritated or indignant.”

— Gelett Burgess

45. “Many a maid have I won by a quarrel, when flattery was in no wise helpful; but take heed that thou art in the wrong, so that thou mayest acknowledge thine error.”

— Gelett Burgess

46. “The old say, “I remember when.” The young say, “What’s the news?””

— Gelett Burgess

47. “A wedding in haste is worth two at leisure.”

— Gelett Burgess

48. “Style is doing things not in any way but in the best way.”

— Gelett Burgess

49. “When the waitress puts the dinner on the table, the old men look at the dinner. The young men look at the waitress.”

— Gelett Burgess

50. “A reproof entereth more into a woman of sense than an hundred compliments into a fool.”

— Gelett Burgess