Frasi di William Schwenck Gilbert

“Il significato non importa se è soltanto una chiacchiera vuota di un tipo trascendentale.”

“La devozione matrimoniale non sembra adatta al suo credo.”

“La filosofia è per pochi.”

“La vita è uno scherzo che è appena cominciato.”

“Non proviamo a produrre idee, preferendo aspettare che gli eventi accadano da soli. Per creare bisogna liberarsi da ogni pensiero artistico.”

“Some word that teems with hidden meaning, like "Basingstoke". It might recall me to my saner self. For, after all, I am only Mad Margaret! Daft Meg! Poor Meg! He! he! he!”

“Yes, I am the Apostle of Simplicity. I am called Archibald the All-Right, for I am infallible.”

“…Darwinian Man, though well-behav’d,
At best is only a monkey shav’d!”

“I love my fellow-creatures, I do all the good I can,
Yet everybody says I'm such a disagreeable man
And I can't think why!”

“No money, no grovel!
(Actually an ad-lib introduced by Rutland Barrington when playing the rôle of Pooh-Bah, to the annoyance of Gilbert.)”

“The idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone,
All centuries but this and every country but his own.”

“It's true I've got no shirts to wear,
It's true my butcher's bill is due,
It's true my prospects all look blue,
But don't let that unsettle you!
Never you mind!
Roll on!”

“My eyes are fully open to my awful situation, I shall go at once to Roderic and make him an oration,
I shall tell him I've recovered my forgotten moral senses, and I don't care tuppence ha'penny for any consequences.
Now I do not want to perish by the sword or by the dagger, but a martyr may indulge a little pardonable swagger
And a word or two of compliment my vanity would flatter, but I've got to die to-morrow, so it really doesn't matter!”

“Now landsmen all, whoever you may be,
If you want to rise to the top of the tree,
If your soul isn't fettered to an office stool,
Be careful to be guided by this golden rule—
Stick close to your desks and never go to sea,
And you all may be Rulers of the Queen's Navee.”

“Heigh-dy! Heigh-dy!
Misery me, lack-a-day-dee!
He sipped no sup, and he craved no crumb,
As he sighed for the love of a ladye!”

“Pooh Bah: This professional conscientiousness is highly creditable to you, but it places us in a very awkward position.
Koko: My good sir, the awkwardness of your position is grace itself compared with that of a man engaged in the act of cutting off his own head.”

“A pallid and thin young man,
A haggard and lank young man,
A greenery-yallery, Grosvenor Gallery,
Foot-in-the-grave young man!”

“Oh! my name is John Wellington Wells,
I'm a dealer in magic and spells,
In blessings and curses
And ever-filled purses,
In prophecies, witches, and knells.

If you want a proud foe to "make tracks"—
If you'd melt a rich uncle in wax—
You've but to look in
On our resident Djinn,
Number seventy, Simmery Axe!”

“If you want a receipt for that popular mystery,
Known to the world as a Heavy Dragoon -
Take all the remarkable people in history,
Rattle them off to a popular tune!”

“As someday it may happen that a victim must be found
I've got a little list, I've got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed—who never would be missed!”

“She may very well pass for forty three
In the dusk with the light behind her.”

“You have a daughter, Captain Reese,
Ten female cousins and a niece,
A ma, if what I'm told is true,
Six sisters and an aunt or two.
Now, somehow, Sir, it seems to me,
More friendly-like we all should be
If you united of them to
Unmarried members of the crew.”

“On a tree by a river a little tomtit
Sang "Willow, titwillow, titwillow"
And I said to him, "Dicky-bird, why do you sit
Singing ‘Willow, titwillow, titwillow?'.
"Is it weakness of intellect, birdie?" I cried,
"Or a rather tough worm in your little inside?"
With a shake of his poor little head he replied,
"Oh, Willow, titwillow, titwillow!"”

“But I submit, my lord, with all submission,
To marry two at once is Burglaree!”

“Oh, I am a cook and a captain bold
And the mate of the Nancy brig,
And a bo'sun tight and a midshipmite
And the crew of the captain's gig.”

“…but it's an unjust world, and virtue is triumphant only in theatrical performances.”

“Things are seldom what they seem;
Skim milk masquerades as cream.”

“The Law is the true embodiment
Of everything that's excellent.
It has no kind of fault or flaw,
And I, my Lords, embody the Law.”

“I am, in point of fact, a particularly haughty and exclusive person, of pre-Adamite ancestral descent. You will understand this when I tell you that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule. Consequently, my family pride is something inconceivable. I can’t help it. I was born sneering.”

“Or you or I must yield up his life to Ahrimanes. I would rather it were you.”

“I should have preferred to ride through the streets of Venice; but owing, I presume, to an unusually wet season,
the streets are in such a condition that equestrian exercise is impractical.”

“The end is easily foretold,
When every blessed thing you hold
Is made of silver, or of gold,
You long for simple pewter.
When you have nothing else to wear
But cloth of gold and satins rare,
For cloth of gold you cease to care—
Up goes the price of shoddy.
In short, whoever you may be,
To this conclusion you'll agree,
When everyone is somebodee,
Then no one's anybody!”

“Of that there is no manner of doubt—
No probable, possible shadow of doubt—
No possible doubt whatever.”

“Oh, philosophers may sing
Of the troubles of a King,
But of pleasures there are many and of worries there are none;
And the culminating pleasure
That we treasure beyond measure
Is the gratifying feeling that our duty has been done.”