Top 80 John Gay Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “To shoot at crows is powder flung away.”

— John Gay

52. “So comes a reck’ning when the banquet’s o’er, The dreadful reckn’ning, and men smile no more.”

— John Gay

53. “Music might tame and civilize wild beasts, but ’tis evident it never yet could tame and civilize musicians.”

— John Gay

54. “Twas when the seas were roaring With hollow blasts of wind, A damsel lay deploring, All on a rock reclined.”

— John Gay

55. “One wife is too much for most husbands to bear, But two at a time there’s no mortal can bear.”

— John Gay

56. “Here Shock, the pride of all his kind, is laid, Who fawned like man, but ne’er like man betrayed.”

— John Gay

57. “To cheat a man isnothing; but the womanmust have fine parts indeed who cheats a woman!”

— John Gay

58. “Of all the fools that pride can boast, A Coxcomb claims distinction most.”

— John Gay

59. “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

60. “What frenzy dictates, jealousy believes.”

— John Gay

61. “Envy’s a sharper spur than pay: No author ever spar’d a brother; Wits are gamecocks to one another.”

— John Gay

62. “The sun was set; the night came on apace, And falling dews bewet around the place; The bat takes airy rounds on leathern wings, And the hoarse owl his woeful dirges sings.”

— John Gay

63. “How, like a moth, the simple maid Still plays around the flame!”

— John Gay

64. “Beasts kill for hunger, men for pay.”

— John Gay

65. “Can love be controll’d by advice?”

— John Gay

66. “And when a lady’s in the case, You know, all other things give place.”

— John Gay

67. “Fair is the kingcup that in meadow blows, Fair is the daisy that beside her grows.”

— John Gay

68. “A woman’s friendship ever ends in love.”

— John Gay

69. “What then in love can woman do? If we grow fond they shun us. And when we fly them, they pursue: But leave us when they’ve won us.”

— John Gay

70. “Fill it up. I take as large draughts of liquor as I did of love. I hate a flincher in either.”

— John Gay

71. “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

72. “She who has never lov’d, has never liv’d.”

— John Gay

73. “I must have women – there is nothing unbends the mind like them.”

— John Gay

74. “Who talks much, must talk in vain.”

— John Gay

75. “One common fate we both must prove; You die with envy, I with love.”

— John Gay

76. “Variety’s the source of joy below, From whence still fresh-revolving pleasures flow, In books and love the mind one end pursues, And only change the expiring flames renews.”

— John Gay

77. “Do you think your mother and I should have lived comfortably so long together, if ever we had been married? Baggage!”

— John Gay

78. “Gulliver was soon being read “from the cabinet council to the nursery”.”

— John Gay

79. “When if or chance or hunger’s powerful sway Directs the roving trout this fatal way, He greedily sucks in the twining bait, And tugs and nibbles the fallacious meat. Now, happy fisherman; now twitch the line! How thy rod bends! behold, the prize is thine!”

— John Gay

80. “No author ever spar’d a brother.”

— John Gay

81. “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.”

— John Gay

82. “Look round, the wrecks of play behold; Estates dismember’d, mortgaged, sold! Their owners now to jails confin’d, Show equal poverty of mind.”

— John Gay

83. “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

84. “Murder is as fashionable a crime as a man can be guilty of.”

— John Gay

85. “There is no dependence that can be sure but a dependence upon one’s self.”

— John Gay